Billie Jean Moore, a Washburn alumna and Title IX pioneer, died on December 15, 2022, at home in Fullerton, California, at age 79. She had been in hospice care with multiple myeloma.
Washburn athletic director Loren Ferré said “Moore was an early leader and a pioneer of Title IX.”
“While she was not a student-athlete at Washburn since women’s sports had not started, her love for sports and her pushing for changes helped pave the way for countless women’s student-athletes at Washburn and around the nation.”
Moore was the first coach in women’s basketball history to lead two different teams to national titles.
Billie Jean Moore, coached at California State-Fullerton from 1969 to 1977, where she won the AIAW national championship in her first year.
She went on to become UCLA’s head coach from 1977 to 1993, winning the AIAW national championship in 1978. She compiled a 436-196 overall college coaching record.
Moore became the eighth Division I college women’s basketball head coach to reach 400 wins in February 1991.
Billie Jean Moore, was also the head coach of the first-ever United States Olympic women’s basketball team, which won a silver medal in 1976. In 1978, Moore was inducted into the Washburn Athletic Hall of Fame.