The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Kamie Ethridge helps USA Basketball U18 Team to gold medal
07.18.2016 | Women's Basketball
Ethridge starred for the Longhorns from 1982-86.
VALDIVIA, Chile – Former Texas women's basketball player Kamie Ethridge (1982-86) on Sunday helped the USA Women's U18 National Team to a gold medal at the 2016 FIBA Americas U18 Championship in Valdivia, Chile.
Ethridge, currently the head coach at the University of Northern Colorado, served as an assistant under University of Pittsburgh head coach Suzie McConnell-Serio and alongside fellow assistant Charlotte Smith, the head coach at Elon University.
The United States (5-0) outscored Canada 33-14 in the third quarter en route to a 109-62 victory. The gold medal was the USA U18 women's eighth consecutive and ninth overall at the event, and the U.S. women are now 53-2 all-time in FIBA Americas U18 Championship play.
A Lubbock, Texas, native, Ethridge was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002 and the Texas Women's Athletics Hall of Honor inaugural class in 2000. In 1986, Ethridge was the recipient of the Honda Award for basketball and was the overall Hondra-Broderick Cup winner across all sports. She claimed the 1986 Wade Trophy, awarded to the best women's basketball player in the country. Additionally, she garnered the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award, which recognizes the most outstanding NCAA Division I female basketball player under 5-foot-8.
Ethridge led the Longhorns in assists for three consecutive seasons (1984-86) and in steals for two seasons (1983-84, 1985-86). She is the University of Texas' all-time career leader in assists with 776. Ethridge was a senior in 1985-86 when the Longhorns went 34-0 and won the 1986 NCAA Championship, becoming the first women's basketball program in history to record an undefeated season.
Ethridge, a two-time All-American, won an Olympic gold medal with the United States at the 1988 Seoul Games.
Ethridge earned a bachelor's degree in physical education from UT in 1987, spending her final year on the Forty Acres as a student assistant coach. She was then a graduate assistant and assistant coach at Northern Illinois from 1989-91 and then spent five seasons as an assistant coach at Vanderbilt, helping the Commodores to two Southeastern Conference Tournament titles, five NCAA Sweet Sixteen appearances and an appearance in the 1993 NCAA Final Four.
Ethridge then spent 18 seasons as an associate head coach at Kansas State (1996-2014), most recently as associate head coach. She helped lead the Wildcats to a record of 350-226 during that span, as Kansas State advanced to nine NCAA Tournaments, six Sweet Sixteens and four Women's National Invitation Tournament appearances. The Wildcats won two Big 12 Championship titles during her time in Manhattan and claimed the 2006 WNIT Championship.
Ethridge was named the head coach at the University of Northern Colorado on April 28, 2014.
