April 1, 2011

News Links: Gaitley to coach Fordham (AP) | Gaitley gone to Fordham (Ashbury Park Press) | Ocean City Native Gaitley Hired at Fordham (Atlantic City Press)

Bronx, N.Y. - Fordham University announced today that Stephanie Gaitley, who led Monmouth University to 23 wins and a WNIT appearance this past winter, is the new head coach of its women's basketball program. Gaitley signed a multi-year contract to lead the Rams in the Atlantic 10 Conference, a highly competitive conference that sent eight teams to postseason play in 2011, including three to the NCAA Tournament.

Gaitley arrives at Rose Hill with extensive experience as a head coach, including a stint in the Atlantic 10, guiding teams at Monmouth, Long Island University, Saint Joseph's University and the University of Richmond over the past 25 years. She has compiled a 464-270 career record (.630 winning percentage) over that span, including 12 20-win seasons.

Last year, Gaitley led Monmouth to a 23-10 overall record, 13-5 in the Northeast Conference, and help the Hawks tie the school record for wins in a season and advance to the title game of the NEC Championship. Following the championship game loss, Monmouth received its first ever WNIT bid and its first postseason appearance since making the 1983 NCAA Tournament.

Gaitley spent the past three seasons at Monmouth, recording a winning slate each year. She accomplished this with a trademark tough defense, allowing less than 60 points per game each year, including an NEC-best 55.7 this past season.

Gaitley's Monmouth teams also were successful in the classroom with the 2009-10 squad honored by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) as one of the top academic squads in the nation. The Hawks ranked 15th in the country in the WBCA's annual Academic Top 25 Team Honor Roll, which is based on the highest grade point averages (GPA) for the entire season.

Prior to her three years at Monmouth, Gaitley served as the head coach at Long Island University for six seasons, accumulating a 95-82 record at the helm of the program. She left the Brooklyn school as the winningest coach in LIU women's basketball history. In her final season at the school, 2007-08, she guided the Blackbirds to a school-record 24 wins and the top seed in the Northeast Conference Tournament. In her time in Brooklyn, she led LIU to a pair of 20-win seasons, the first NEC Regular Season title and first WNIT bid in program history and was named the 2006-07 NEC Coach of the Year.

Prior to her stint with Long Island, Gaitley was the head coach at Saint Joseph's in Philadelphia, Pa. for ten seasons (1992-01). She led the Hawks to five 20-win seasons and two Atlantic 10 Championships in her time there while earning five NCAA Tournament bids, including three at-large berths. Her teams advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament three times and she earned both a preseason and postseason WNIT bid. She led the Hawks to a 196-88 mark in her ten years in Philadelphia, 109-39 in the A-10, and currently sits as the second-winningest coach in school history. Her 109 Atlantic 10 wins is third all-time among the all-time conference coaches and her .737 winning percentage is seventh best.

In 1992-93, Gaitley's second season with Saint Joseph's, she went 21-8, which kick-started a run of qualifying for the NCAA Tournament in three of the next four years. Gaitley's teams in 1993-94 and 1994-95 went a combined 39-18 at Saint Joseph's. Her teams qualified for the NCAA Tournament in each season, and her 1999-2000 team went 25-6 and won the Atlantic 10 Conference Championship.

Gaitley got her start as a head coach at the University of Richmond from 1985-1991 where she compiled a 116-63 record while winning 20 or more games in a season four times. During her last two seasons with the Spiders, she went a combined 51-10 and won the Colonial Athletic Association Championship each season while advancing to the NCAA Tournament in both years. Gaitley was named the CAA Coach of the Year in 1989-90 and also led the Spiders to a WNIT bid.

Gaitley, a native of Ocean City, N.J., received a Bachelor of Science degree in education from Villanova in 1982 and was an Academic All-American® that season. She received a Master of Science degree in secondary education at Villanova in 1983 and was inducted her into the school's Hall of Fame in 1993, three years after she was enshrined into the Philadelphia Big Five Hall of Fame.

Gaitley and her husband, Frank, have three sons, Dutch (23), DC (18) and Jordan Cooper (12).

"After an extensive national search, we are excited to find someone like Stephanie Gaitley to lead our women's basketball program," said Fordham Executive Director of Athletic Frank McLaughlin. "She has been a winner and has always had a conference-championship caliber team. Not only has Stephanie had great success on the court, she has always emphasized academic success and the full development of the student-athlete. Her outstanding coaching career makes a strong statement that Fordham is very serious about becoming one of the top women's basketball programs in the very competitive Atlantic 10 Conference."

Founded in 1841, Fordham is New York City's Jesuit University. With 22 men's and women's varsity sports teams, the Fordham Rams are members of the NCAA Division I and compete in the Atlantic 10 Conference in baseball, basketball, cross country, golf, indoor and outdoor track, women's rowing, soccer, softball, swimming and diving, tennis and volleyball.

Transactions: Fordham - Stephanie Gaitley hired as head women's basketball coach.