High school and college

She was born in Goldthwaite, Texas, United States to Ann and Charles Conradt. Both her parents were athletic, with her mother playing competitively on a local softball team, and her father playing semi-pro baseball. She was a standout basketball player at Goldthwaite High School (Texas), where she averaged 40 points per game. Many people growing up in Goldthwaite stayed there, according to Condradt, but she got a sense that one could have larger ambitions when a Goldthwaite native, Marie Reynolds, joined the All American Red Heads Team a barnstorming basketball team which played throughout the United States and around the world. After high school, she played collegiate basketball at Baylor University, earning a degree in physical education in 1963. She finished her collegiate basketball career averaging 20 points per game. After graduation, she taught and coached at Waco Midway High School and earned her master's degree from Baylor in 1969.

College coaching

Prior to her career at UT she served as women's basketball head coach at Sam Houston State University from 1969 to 1973, where her teams had a record of 74-23. Then she coached at the University of Texas at Arlington from 1973 to 1976, where her teams had a record of 43-39.

In 1975, in response to Title IX, the University of Texas created a separate women's athletic department. In 1976, they hired Donna Lopiano to become the first woman's athletic director. The following year, Lopiano hired Conradt to become the coach of the woman's basketball team. Conradt had attracted national attention while at the University of Texas at Arlington. After two losing seasons, they went 23-11 in the 1975-76 seasons, upsetting powerful opponents. Texas planned to bring the woman's program to national prominence, and they felt Conradt was the right coach for the job. Teams coached by Condradt were using tactics not seen in many other places, such as full court pressure, double low posts and a transition game.

In Conradt's first season, the team went 36-10. The team was ranked in the AP top ten in the nation all but one year in the 1980s, including a string of four years 1984-1988, where they earned the number one in the nation ranking. The success translated into fan support—the team was averaging 7,500 fans per game by the end of the 1980s, including such state and national leaders as future governor Ann Richards and US Congresswoman Barbara Jordan.

In the 1985 NCAA tournament, the Lady Longhorns lost a heart-breaking game to Western Kentucky 92-90. Watching the game was highly recruited Clarissa Davis, who had not yet decided where to go to school. She resolved to go to Texas, and help them. The following year, Texas would win the national championship with the first undefeated women's season, with a record of 34-0. Although Davis wasn't a starter on the team, she ended up earning the tournament most valuable player award.

In 38 seasons her head coaching record was 900-306. Her 900 career victories is second only to that of Pat Summitt. During her tenure at UT, her record was 783-245. Between January 1978, and January 1990, Conradt's Lady Longhorns did not lose a Southwest Conference game, a streak of 183 consecutive conference victories. From 1986 to 1991, Texas was the women's basketball attendance leader, including an NCAA record average of 8,481 for one season.

Over her career, Conradt has coached:

• 28 players who went on to play professionally
• four US Olympians
• three players who earned a combined 13 national player of the year honors
• eight Kodak All-Americans

Conradt was inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1998 and into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999. She is only the second woman inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame. She was succeeded as UT women's basketball head coach by Gail Goestenkors, the former women's basketball head coach at Duke University.

In 2008, Conradt was honored, along with Dick Vitale, by the Atlanta Tipoff Club, with the Naismith Award, an honor presented annually that "pays tribute to the individuals who have made a significant impact on women’s and men’s college basketball".

Awards and honors

• 1984—Russell Athletic/WBCA National Coach of the Year
• 1986—Russell Athletic/WBCA National Coach of the Year
• 1998—Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
• Women's Basketball Hall of Fame
• 1995—International Women's Sports Hall of Fame
• International Scholar-Athlete Hall of Fame
• Texas Women's Hall of Fame
• 1997—Texas Sports Hall of Fame
• UT Women's Athletics Hall of Honor
• Carol Eckman Award - Women's Basketball Coaches Association (1987)
• Outstanding Commitment to Women's Athletics - National Association for Girls and Women in Sports (1991)
• Harvey Penick Award for Excellence in the Game of Life - Caritas of Austin (2003)
• CASEY Award - Kansas City Sports Association (2004)
• Conference Coach of the Year - 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1996, 2003, 2004
• National Coach of the Year - 1980, 1984, 1986, 1997, 2003, 2004
• Lifetime Achievement Award - 2010 by National Association Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators (NACWAA)

Milestones

• First women's basketball collegiate coach to reach 700 career victories
• Coached first NCAA Division I women's basketball team to an undefeated season and an NCAA National Championship (1986)
• First active women's basketball collegiate coach (and second overall after trophy namesake Margaret Wade) to be enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
• 99% graduation rate for the individuals on her teams

Head coaching record

Basketball

Season	Team	Overall	Conference	Standing	Postseason
Sam Houston State Bearkats (Independent)
1969-70	Sam Houston State	15-4
1970-71	Sam Houston State	20-7
1971-72	Sam Houston State	19-7
1972-73	Sam Houston State	20-7
Sam Houston State:		74-25 (.747)
Texas-Arlington Mavericks (Independent)
1973-74	Texas-Arlington	9-14
1974-75	Texas-Arlington	11-14
1975-76	Texas-Arlington	23-11
Texas-Arlington:		43-39 (.524)
Texas Longhorns (Independent)
1976-77	Texas	36-10			AIAW - 3rd (Regionals)
1977-78	Texas	29-10			AIAW - 5th (Regionals)
1978-79	Texas	37-4			AIAW - 3rd (Regionals)
1979-80	Texas	33-4			AIAW - 7th (National)
1980-81	Texas	28-8			AIAW - 3rd (Regionals)
1981-82	Texas	35-4			AIAW Runners-up
Texas (Independent):		198-40
Texas Longhorns (Southwest Conference)
1982-83	Texas	30-3	8-0	1st	NCAA Elite Eight
1983-84	Texas	32-3	16-0	1st	NCAA Elite Eight
1984-85	Texas	28-3	16-0	1st	NCAA Sweet 16
1985-86	Texas	34-0	16-0	1st	NCAA Champions
1986-87	Texas	31-2	16-0	1st	NCAA Final Four
1987-88	Texas	32-3	16-0	1st	NCAA Elite Eight
1988-89	Texas	27-5	16-0	1st	NCAA Elite Eight
1989-90	Texas	27-5	15-1	T-1st	NCAA Elite Eight
1990-91	Texas	21-9	14-2	2nd	NCAA 1st Round
1991-92	Texas	21-10	11-3	2nd	NCAA 2nd Round
1992-93	Texas	22-8	13-1	T-1st	NCAA 2nd Round
1993-94	Texas	22-9	10-4	3rd	NCAA 2nd Round
1994-95	Texas	12-16	7-7	T-4th
1995-96	Texas	21-9	13-1	T-1st	NCAA 2nd Round
Texas (SWC):		360-85 (.809)	187-19 (.908)
Texas Longhorns (Big 12 Conference)
1996-97	Texas	22-8	12-4	T-2nd	NCAA 2nd Round
1997-98	Texas	12-15	7-9	7th
1998-19	Texas	16-12	10-6	4th	NCAA 1st Round
1999-2000	Texas	21-13	9-7	6th	NCAA 1st Round
2000-01	Texas	20-13	7-9	7th	NCAA 1st Round
2001-02	Texas	22-10	10-6	5th	NCAA Sweet 16
2002-03	Texas	29-6	15-1	1st	NCAA Final Four
2003-04	Texas	30-5	14-2	T-1st	NCAA Sweet 16
2004-05	Texas	22-9	13-3	2nd	NCAA 2nd Round
2005-06	Texas	13-15	7-9	T-8th
2006-07	Texas	18-14	6-10	T-7th
Texas (Big 12):		225-120 (.652)	110-66 (.625)
Total:		900-309 (.744)

Volleyball

Season	Team	Overall	Conference	Standing	Postseason
Texas-Arlington Mavericks (Independent)
1973	Texas-Arlington	27-9-3
1974	Texas-Arlington	44-6-3
1975	Texas-Arlington	34-14-2
Texas-Arlington:		105-29-8
Texas Longhorns (Independent)
1976	Texas	28-19-5			AIAW National Qualifier
1977	Texas	34-19-2
Texas:		60-38-7
Total:		165-67-15

[ Source: Wikipedia ]