The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Hall of Honor
- Induction:
- 2014
- Class:
- 1988
A 1,000-point career scorer and 1988 Southwest Conference Player of the Year, Yulonda Wimbish-North is one of the most potent scorers and staunch defenders in Texas Women’s Basketball history. Throughout her four years at Texas (1985-88), she was a consistent force for the Longhorns. Wimbish-North played in 129 of UT’s 133 games during that period and finished her career ranked eighth in scoring at Texas with 1,486 points. During collegiate career, the Longhorns won the 1986 NCAA title, tallied a 125-8 overall record, registered a perfect 64-0 record in SWC play, won four conference regular-season and tournament titles, made two Final Four appearances and finished No. 1 in the final Associated Press poll three times. She stepped in as a freshman and averaged 10.3 points in just 19 minutes per game on a team that advanced to NCAA Regionals. As a sophomore, Wimbish-North was the first player off the bench on the historic 1986 National Championship squad that became the first women’s basketball team to finish a season undefeated (34-0). During the 1985-86 campaign, she averaged 7.4 points per game on better than 59 percent shooting and scored 10 points in the NCAA title game victory against USC. The Longhorns’ 1985-86 national championship team is now represented in the UT Women’s Athletics Hall of Honor by seven former student-athletes: Clarissa Davis, Kamie Ethridge, Fran Harris, Andrea Lloyd, Annette Smith, Beverly Williams and Wimbish. As a junior, she went on to score double-figure points in 23 games to earn a spot on the All-Southwest Conference Second Team while guiding Texas to a second-straight Final Four and a No. 1 ranking in the final Associated Press poll. Wimbish-North capped off her collegiate career by averaging a team-high 15.3 points per game and earned Southwest Conference Player of the Year honors. She earned a bachelor’s degree in speech communications in 1988. Wimbish-North served as an assistant women’s basketball coach at the University of Illinois (1990-94), the University of Detroit-Mercy (1995-96) and the University of Michigan (1996-2000) and as director of basketball operations at Michigan (2000-01). She earned her master’s degree in education-counseling at Eastern Illinois University in 2001. Wimbish-North also was inducted into the Texas High School Basketball Hall of Fame in 2001. Wimbish-North continues to contribute to education and to the development of basketball, as she has served as educator, Girls’ Athletic Coordinator and Head Girls’ Basketball Coach since 2010 at Victoria East High School in her hometown of Victoria, Texas. She and her husband, George North, are the parents of four daughters, Imani, Leilani, Giani and Kiani.
