Anne Donovan shown imploring the troops as coach of the Connecticut Sun.

The Hall-of-Fame player and coach died last week of heart failure at the

age of 56.

WILMINGTON, NC —Last week, Connecticut sports, the WNBA and women’s basketball lost a great one. Anne Donovan, the only person to have coached both the Connecticut Sun and New York Liberty, has died on Wednesday of heart failure at her home in Wilmington, NC. She was 56.





A native of Ridgefield, NJ, the 6-8 Hall of Famer played her college ball at Old Dominion where she followed Nancy Lieberman and led the Lady Monarchs to the national championship in 1980. In her college career, Donovan averaged a Double-Double (20 points, 14.5 boards).





“Annie was so quiet and kind, but she was such a competitor,” said Lieberman, who was a senior at Old Dominion when Donovan was a freshman. “She didn't have to brag. She just did her business, and everywhere she went, she won. I'm just sick at hearing this. I'm so sad.”





Lieberman had been an assistant coach with the NBA’s Sacramento Kings since 2015.





After college, with virtually no opportunity for women to play professionally in the U.S. in the early ’80s (Donovan graduated from Old Dominion in 1883), Donovan headed overseas and played for five years in Japan and Italy. The Olympics, however, were a different story. Although she did not play in the 1980 Moscow Games because of the United States boycott, she led the U.S. to gold in 1984 and 1988. She also coached Team USA to a gold medal in the 1988 Olympic Games in Beijing.





A trailblazer in women's sports, Donovan became the first female coach in WNBA history when she took over the reins in Seattle in 2003 and led the Storm to their first WNBA title the next season. A young Sue Bird was one of the leaders of that team. “I’m very happy that we finally have a woman coach win a WNBA championship,” Donovan said at the time, “and obviously happy it was me.”





Donovan also coached the Indiana Fever, Charlotte Sting, as well as the Liberty and the Sun during her WNBA coaching career. She led the Sting to the finals in 2001.





She was hired by the New York s an assistant coach in 2009. In 2011, Donovan accepted the position as head coach at Seton Hall where she coached until 2013. Then it was on to Uncasville where she succeeded Mike Thibault as head coach of the Sun. Indeed, Donovan’s tenure with Connecticut was sandwiched in between arguably the two greatest coaches in franchise history—Thibault, and Curt Miller, who succeeded Donovan. Ironically, both coaches were in Uncasville when they got the news of Donovan’s passing after Thibault’s Washington Mystics handed Miller’s Sun their first home loss of the season.





“I’ve just been told the news about the passing of Anne Donovan, so it puts the simple game of basketball in perspective,” Miller said after the game. “On behalf of our organization, our thoughts and prayers and condolences are with Anne’s family and friends. Obviously, I was fortunate to take over for and follow in Anne’s footsteps here. Her legacy in the game of basketball is well felt and has deep roots. We lost a pioneer for the game of women’s basketball. She will be missed, but her legacy will live on.”





“On the basketball court, she won championships before she got here, she won Olympic gold, she was a Hall of Famer—all the basketball part,” Thibault said. “But the other part is she’s just a good human being who cared about her friends. She has a lot of close, close friends and I think that’s one of the things that’s telling about people is when they’re out of the game. All the basketball stuff goes away when you have that kind of stuff happen.”





While with the Sun, Donovan coached the likes of Katie Douglas (pictured),

Tina Charles, Renee Montgomery and Kelly Faris.



With the Sun, Donovan coached the likes of Katie Douglas, Renee Montgomery, Kelly Faris and Tina Charles. Charles, the former UConn superstar who was drafted No. 1 overall by the Sun in 2010 and was named WNBA Rookie of the Year, played for Donovan in 2013 and was deeply affected by the news.





“It hurt bad,” said UConn's all-time leading rebounder, who now plays for the Liberty. “To be totally honest, she was the only coach that I played for that coached me and challenged me and forced me to be better. At a young age, I didn’t understand it.”





Donovan was inducted into was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1995 and was in the inaugural class of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999.

She is survived by four sisters and two brothers.

—Staff Reports