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| 2004
Inductee
Betty Wiseman
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Throughout
the past four decades, the name Betty Wiseman has become synonymous
with Belmont University and women's basketball. A native of
Portland, Tennessee, Wiseman put together a standout prep
career at Portland High School.
Beginning
as an eighth grader, she started every game and led her team
in scoring for five years. After averaging over 30 points
per game as a senior, she was recruited by John Head of Nashville
Business College to play for the defending National &
World AAU Champions. However, Wiseman turned down the offer
to attend Belmont and pursue her dream to teach and coach
basketball.
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After
graduating from Belmont in 1965, Wiseman was named an Associate
Professor of Health & Physical Education in 1966, and
began a teaching career that has spanned 38 years. In 1968,
with the help of University President Herbert Gabhart, she
blazed another trail, founding the women's basketball program
at Belmont. Women's basketball at Belmont was one of the first
women's collegiate programs, not only in the state, but in
the southeast. Wiseman's summer basketball camps for girls,
also founded in 1968, were filled with girls from across the
state.
Her success
speaks for itself. She was named "Coach of the Year"
four times, including once at the National Women's Invitational
Tournament in 1977. She led her teams to several championships
and victories over such notable programs as Alabama, Nebraska,
North Carolina, Vanderbilt and Tennessee. She was named Belmont's
Alumni of the Year in 1977 and inducted into the Belmont Athletics
Hall of Fame in 1981.
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In 1999,
Wiseman was recognized by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association
with the Josten-Barenson Lifetime Achievement Award. This
past November, Belmont honored her by naming part of the university's
new athletic facility the Striplin-Wiseman Athletic Office
Complex. As Belmont's most outstanding teacher, Wiseman was
named the Chaney Distinguished Professor in 1989. In 1997,
for services rendered students outside the classroom, she
received the Presidential Faculty Achievement Award. Wiseman
currently serves as an Assistant Athletics Director in the
capacity of Senior Woman Administrator. She also chairs the
Department of Health & Human Performance. For ten years,
she has led Belmont student-athletes on yearly Sports Evangelism
mission trips to other countries.
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