The grand dame of basketball leaves the court

With Jody Conradt's announcement that she will no longer coach the University of Texas comes the end of an era of one of women's college basketball's great programs. Conradt led Texas to the 1986 championship in undefeated fashion and returned to the Final Four in 2003 for her third time. This year marked the second year in a row that a Texas team has missed the NCAA tournament and for Conradt it was unacceptable. You have to admire Conradt's honesty and recognition that losing is unacceptable and a program not making the NCAA tournament is unacceptable. Conradt took responsibility for this and chose to step aside to allow a new leader to take Texas back to glory.

"I think it is appropriate at this point in time a change be made in terms of coaching. It's not acceptable for me, it's not acceptable for The University of Texas not to be in the NCAA Tournament two years in a row. So, after thinking about it, February was a very hard month because we lost games during that month that probably sealed our fate. It was during that time, that I started to think that Texas needs to be one of those teams challenging. Not only to be in the tournament, but to be a very high seed."

Conradt earned her 900th victory during the Big 12 Tournament before falling to Oklahoma. Her colleagues praised her leadership and her being a pioneer of the sport.

"She's an icon in women's basketball," Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said. "Nine hundred wins is mind boggling. As great a coach as she is, she's an even better person. I've admired her and the job she's done. I'm happy for her she's retiring and moving on, but our game will miss her. I only have the ultimate respect and admiration for her. It has to be hard. She's from my era a little bit. You think of coaches around my age retiring -- whoa."

Only one coach in all of college basketball has more wins than Conradt, that being Pat Summitt, a close friend and someone who shares equal admiration along the lines of VanDerveer.

"As I told her, we all appreciate what she's done for this game," Summitt said. "She's been a great friend of mine, a mentor, and we're going to miss her. But she's left her footprints all over the game and all over a lot of us coaches."

Conradt coached for 38 seasons, 31 of those being at the University of Texas. She went to three final fours and won a national title, along with making five Elite 8 appearances and 11 Sweet Sixteens, the last coming in 2004. Conradt says she is going to take some time off, but will not consider anymore coaching opportunities and will likely take on some role with the University of Texas. She says she will not be involved or have any say in who will be the next coach at Texas.