Coaching icon Barbara Stevens honored with lifetime achievement award

Legendary basketball coach and Waltham resident Barbara Stevens has been awarded a prestigious WeCOACH Lifetime Achievement Award for her exceptional 43-year coaching career.

The award is presented to women in sports who succeed at the highest levels while also displaying an unwavering commitment, pioneering spirit and trailblazing leadership to empower and pave the way for girls and women.

Stevens is one of the winningest coaches in NCAA women’s basketball history, becoming just the fifth women’s basketball coach to surpass 1,000 career wins (the only non-Division I coach in that exclusive club), retiring with an extraordinary 1,058-291 record.

She was Bentley University’s head coach for 34 years (1986-2020) where she won more than 900 games. Stevens led the Falcons to the NCAA Division II national title in the 2013-2014 season, a year in which the Falcons posted a perfect 35-0 record.

Stevens’ Bentley tenure included an incredible .818 winning percentage, 31 NCAA Tournament berths, 14 NCAA Regional Championships, 10 appearances in the NCAA Semifinals, 12 30-win seasons (including five straight from 1989-93) and 20 Northeast 10 regular season championships.

During her career Stevens was named the NCAA DII National Coach of the Year five times and recognized as the Northeast 10 Coach of the Year 16 times.

She was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006 and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020, recognizing a career defined by excellence, consistency and transformational leadership in women’s basketball.

Stevens retired in 2020 and is enjoying her post-coaching days in the Bishops Forest community in Waltham, where she has lived for 28 years.

Coach Barbara Stevens from her coaching days. Photo courtesy of Bentley University.