(AP) Billie Moore, who coached America’s first women’s Olympic basketball team to a silver medal at the Montreal Games in 1976, has died at age 79. UCLA, where Moore won 296 games over 16 years including a national title in 1978, announced her death on Thursday.
Born in Missouri, Moore’s family moved to Westmoreland then Topeka, where she graduated from Highland Park before getting a degree at Washburn.
Moore first won a college title at Cal State Fullerton in 1970, a year before the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) began. She was the first coach in women’s basketball history to lead teams from two different schools to national championships. Moore was inducted in both the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999 and is also a member of the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame.
