Lisa Stone was announced as WashU’s fourth ever women’s basketball coach on August 22. (Image Courtesy of WashU Athletics)

Lisa Stone has been a basketball head coach for 36 years. When her 10-year run coaching Saint Louis University (SLU) ended in 2022, she wasn’t sure where her career would take her next.

Two years later, she got a call from Nancy Fahey, the Hall of Fame coach who led Washington University’s women’s basketball program to five national championships. When Fahey told Stone about the opening of WashU’s head coaching spot, Stone was instantly intrigued.

“She asked and I said, ‘Heck yeah, that’s a great opportunity,’” Stone recalled.

Over the years, Stone and Fahey had become close friends. The pair grew up five miles from each other in Wisconsin. When Fahey was in her senior year on the women’s basketball team at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, she faced off against Stone, then a first-year point guard at Big Ten rival University of Iowa. Since then, Stone and Fahey have dueled many times as coaches, including in Stone’s last game at the Division III level. In that game in 2000, Fahey and WashU beat Stone’s University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire squad in the NCAA tournament en route to one of Fahey’s five national championships with the Bears. 

Over the last four decades, Fahey and her successor Randi Henderson have built WashU’s program into one of Division III’s best. The opportunity to take the reins as WashU’s fourth-ever head coach was one that Stone couldn’t pass up.

“To be able to lead a program like this is the perfect match for me right now in my career,” she said. “I can’t wait, I can’t wait to put my basketball shoes on and run on that court…It didn’t take me long to make a decision.”

WashU’s newest basketball coach brings a lot of energy wherever she goes. Though Stone has been a coach for 36 years, she says the level of enthusiasm she brings to a program hasn’t diminished.

“I’m still the same person I was when I started out at Cornell [College]. I mean, I’ve coached 36 years, but I’m still the same coach, same energy. I’m flying in there.”

Before she was a coach, Stone was a standout on the court. She played four years as a star point guard at Iowa, which built many of the foundations she still uses today. While in college, Stone was coached by Vivian Stringer, the fifth winningest coach in women’s college basketball history and a member of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.

“I was her captain and point guard, and a lot of responsibility falls on the point guard, because it’s like the mini coach on the court,” Stone said.

While pursuing a master’s in Athletic Administration at Iowa, Stone began her coaching career at Cornell College, a small Division III school 20 miles down the road. At the time, she was the youngest college basketball head coach in the country and did much more than just coach basketball.

“Somebody took a chance on a young kid, you know, and I coached basketball and softball, and I had to teach anatomy, physiology and biomechanics,” she recounted.

In 1988, Stone left Cornell to become the head coach at Wisconsin–Eau Claire. Though Stone only coached basketball there, she still kept herself busy.

“I did the budget, and I even taped ankles at [the] Division III level. You don’t want me doing that,” she joked.

At Eau Claire, Stone inherited a program that had previously had only one winning season. In her 12 seasons with the Blugolds, Stone led the team to a 277-59 record, 11 NCAA Division III tournament berths, and six conference titles. In 1996–97, she was named the Division III National Coach of the Year after her team made a run to the National Championship game.

Stone most recently coached at SLU, where she led the Billikens to a 164-138 record over 10 seasons. (Image Courtesy of WashU Athletics)

In 2000, Stone made the jump to the Division I level, leading Drake University to a 64-27 record in three seasons. Stone guided Drake to the NCAA Sweet 16 in 2002. In 2003, she returned to her home state, this time to coach the Wisconsin Badgers.

“I’m from there, I’m the local girl, and my whole family’s there…It meant a lot. I was coming home,” she said.

Stone’s family has always meant a lot to her. Stone, who has two kids with her husband of 36 years, applies what she describes as a family-style approach to coaching basketball. 

“There’s a lot of people that talk [about] family, but I am family because of the many hats I wear. A mother, wife, teacher, coach,” she said. “I want my team to play like that defensively…I’m a defensive coach. You have to be a family. You have to have a servanthood mentality, that if you get beat on defense — you’re going to get beat on defense — that someone’s always there to help you.”

Stone utilized that mentality to turn Wisconsin’s program around. The Badgers had gone 7-21 the previous season, but by 2006-2007, Stone led the Badgers to a 23-13 record and the championship game of the Women’s National Invitational Tournament (WNIT). In 2009-10, she led the Badgers to the NCAA tournament and then won Big Ten Coach of the Year the following year. 

However, Stone’s teams often found themselves in the WNIT instead of the March Madness tournament and struggled to reach the lofty expectations of the Big Ten program. Stone was fired in March 2011.

While at Wisconsin, Stone worked closely with Bo Ryan, the Hall of Famer who coached the men’s program from 2001-2015. In a statement published in WashU’s press release, Ryan gave special praise to his former colleague.

“If my daughter played basketball, I would want Lisa to be her coach,” he said.

In May 2012, Stone was hired at SLU, taking over a program that had suffered nine straight losing seasons. Once again, she turned the team around. In the 2015-16 season, the Billikens went 26-8 and won the university’s first Atlantic 10 Conference regular season title. Though Stone had many successful seasons at SLU, her contract was not renewed following a 9-18 record in 2021-2022.

When Stone heard from Fahey about WashU’s opening, she said she knew it was the right fit for her, and not just because it meant she wouldn’t have to leave the city of St. Louis. Unlike many of her previous stops, Stone inherits a program coming off of a 17-9 record and a trip to the NCAA tournament in 2024. At WashU, Stone is looking to take the Bears to the next level, and she has her eyes on eventually hanging up a national championship banner in the rafters alongside Fahey’s five.

“You want to get 1% better every day…we want to improve on and off the court in our process and how we do things, we must improve every day. The goal is to win the conference, and winning the conference, then put you in the NCAA tournament,” she said. “Going deeper than the year before is always a goal, with the ultimate goal of winning a national championship.”

Stone has only been at WashU for a couple of days, but she’s already injecting her energy into a basketball program once again.

“I love the fact I’m still coaching. I’ve got a lot of energy, a lot of passion, and I really want to pour everything I have into these young women.”