Pac-12 and other women coaches with husbands as assistants

A number of women basketball coaches in the Pac-12 and elsewhere are doing so with their husbands as assistant coaches. Recent NCAA runner-up Arizona women’s coach is Adia Barnes, who was the Pac-12 Player of the Year and 1st Team All-American at Arizona, and then WNBA champion with the Seattle Storm. She played in high school for current USC women’s coach, Mark Trakh. Adia’s Associate Head Coach is her husband, Salvo Coppa, who coached professionally in Italy where Adia played at one time. At Colorado, Head Coach JR Payne, who played basketball for Oregon Head Coach Kelly Graves at St. Mary’s, employs husband Toriano Towns as her Associate Head Coach in charge of defenses. At Washington, recently fired Head Coach Jody Wynn had her husband Derek as Associate Head Coach, just as he was for her at Long Beach State. Former WSU Cougar Head Coach, June Daugherty, now retired, employed her husband Mike as an assistant coach for 28 years at Boise State, Washington, and finally at WSU. On the flip side, Scott Rueck, now of course at OSU, employed his wife Kerry as an assistant when he was head coach at George Fox, where they went 32-0 in 2009 to win the NAIA National Championship.
(Scott was an assistant coach there when Kerry and Scott's sister, Heidi, were on the team).

Elsewhere in the country, Gonzaga promoted Lisa Fortier to be women’s Head Coach, when her former boss, Kelly Graves, left for Oregon. She then hired her husband Craig as an assistant coach. Jennifer Rizzotti, Hall of Fame player at UConn and now Head Coach at George Washington, has employed her husband Bill Sullivan as an assistant coach for 18 years at two different colleges. At former powerhouse Tennessee, when Head Coach Kellie Harper was hired, she brought her husband Jon as assistant coach just as he was at Missouri State. Portland State hired a husband and wife team as assistant coaches: Chelsey Gregg as Associate Head Coach and husband Keithan as Assistant Coach.