Wake Forest Athletics
Coats Fulks Honored by WBCA
3/25/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
By Wake Forest Athletic Communications (@WakeWBB)
ATLANTA -- Wake Forest women's basketball assistant coach Gayle Coats Fulks was named a recipient of the Women's Basketball Coaches Association's (WBCA) Thirty Under 30 awards on Friday.
The award is given to up-and-coming women's basketball coaches younger than 30 years old. This is the first year the award has been issued. It is designed to recognize each recipient's involvement in community service, mentorship and impact on others' professional manner and attitude and professional association involvement.
"I am incredibly honored and humbled to receive this recognition from the WBCA," Coats Fulks said. "It is a credit to the character of the players I have been fortunate to coach, and the countless ways coach Jen Hoover and my other mentors have invested in me as a person, as a coach and as a professional."
Primarily coaching Wake Forest's backcourt, Coats Fulks helped the progression of Wake Forest's leading scorer in 2015-16, Amber Campbell, and helped Ariel Stephenson become Wake Forest's first player named to the ACC All-Freshman Team since Sandra Garcia in 2010. The 2015-16 season marked the fourth season Coats Fulks has been an assistant coach with the Demon Deacons, joining the program when Hoover was hired in 2012. Coats Fulks is the only coach from an ACC team to have been named to the list.
This season, Campbell led Wake Forest with 13 points per game. A consistent performer throughout the season, Campbell also averaged nearly 13 points per contest in 16 ACC games. Overall, the sophomore from Charleston, South Carolina, shot 42.1 percent from the floor and 74.1 percent from the free throw line.
Coats Fulks' guidance of Stephenson led the freshman from Prince George, Virginia, to ACC All-Freshman Team honors from both the league's head coaches and the Blue Ribbon Panel. Stephenson led Wake Forest with 24 double-figure games in her first year with the team while averaging 12.7 points per game, which finished second on the team.
