Marlene Stollings

Stollings began her college coaching career as an assistant coach at Jacksonville University in the 2000–01 season. In 2001, Stollings began the first of two seasons as an assistant coach at New Mexico State under Nikita Lowry Dawkins, who was then named Nikita Lowry.[1] Early in 2003, New Mexico State fired Lowry following an internal investigation that found that Lowry was physically and verbally abusive towards players.[6] From December 20, 2002, until resigning on February 5, 2003, Stollings was interim head coach, during which she went 9–3.[7][8] Eventually, New Mexico State won the Sun Belt Conference West Division title.[6][7]

On July 9, 2003, Wright State University hired Stollings as an assistant coach for the Wright State Raiders women's basketball program on the staff of head coach Bridgett Williams.[9] Stollings coached for one season at Wright State.[1]

From 2005 to 2007, Stollings was an assistant coach at Saint Louis University under Shimmy Gray-Miller.[1] Stollings was then an assistant coach under Renee Ladner at Ole Miss from 2007 to 2011 and was associate head coach in the 2010–11 season.[1] Stollings helped sign a highly ranked 2009 recruiting class that included Mississippi Gatorade Player of the Year Valencia McFarland.[1]

In the 2011–12 season, Stollings had her first head coaching job at Winthrop, where Winthrop went 18–13, only the program's second winning season in 26 years and the most total wins by any first-year Winthrop head coach.[1] As a result, Stollings won Big South Conference Coach of the Year honors in women's basketball.[1]

From 2012 to 2014, Stollings was head coach at VCU. After an 11–19 debut season in 2012–13, Stollings doubled the win total in 2013–14 to 22–10 with an appearance in the 2014 Women's National Invitation Tournament for the sixth 20-win season in program history.[1][10]

The University of Minnesota hired Stollings to be Minnesota Golden Gophers women's basketball head coach on April 7, 2014.[11] Minnesota went 23–10 (11–7 Big Ten) in Stollings's first season and made the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2009.[1] The 2014–15 team featured two 2015 WNBA draft picks in Big Ten Player of the Year Amanda Zahui B. (second overall) and Shae Kelley (35th).[1]

In 2015–16, Minnesota went 20–12 (11–7 Big Ten) and qualified for the second round of the WNIT.[1] Minnesota dropped to 15–16 in 2016–17, during which Stollings reached her 100th career coaching win, but improved to 24–9 (11–5 Big Ten) with a second round NCAA tournament appearance in 2017–18.[10][12] Stollings finished 82–47 in four seasons at Minnesota.[10]

Texas Tech University hired Stollings as Texas Tech Lady Raiders basketball head coach on April 9, 2018.[13] Inheriting a team that went 7–23,[14] Stollings led Texas Tech to a 14–17 record in 2018–19.[10] Following an 11–0 start, Texas Tech went 18–11 (7–11 Big 12) record in 2019–20, a season that had the Big 12 Tournament and postseason play canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[10][15][16]

USA Today revealed in a story published on August 5, 2020, that 12 players left Texas Tech since Stollings became head coach in 2018 over accusations that Stollings and her staff were verbally abusive and subject players to dangerous forms of conditioning, for instance a requirement for players to have a 90 percent heart rate in practice and games.[6] The day after that story was published, Texas Tech fired Stollings for cause.[17][18] Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt verbally heard findings on June 29 from an internal investigation into Stollings but took over a month to take disciplinary action, for which Hocutt said on August 7: "Have we let these girls down? We have," and "While we were aware of the concerns the young women brought forward after the first season, we were not aware of the magnitude to which they had occurred or to the magnitude to which it’d affected the young women in our locker room."[18]