Terry Sanford's Shea Ralph, women's basketball game-changer, named to NC Hall of Fame
North Carolina has produced some of the greatest athletes in the world, and a Fayetteville native is set to take her place among them in the state's Hall of Fame.
The North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame announced its Class of 2024 on Monday, and Terry Sanford alum Shea Ralph is in it.
Joining her for induction are Steve Smith (Carolina Panthers football), Randolph Childress (Wake Forest basketball), Sheila Ford Duncan (UNC Asheville basketball), Carolina Lind (Olympic rowing), Bob McKillop (Davidson basketball coach), Jim Nantz (Broadcasting), Pettis Norman (Dallas Cowboys, San Diego Chargers football), Don Skakle (UNC tennis player, coach), Que Tucker (NCHSAA commissioner, NC State basketball assistant coach), Ron Wellman (Wake Forest AD).
Ralph, currently the women's basketball head coach at Vanderbilt, held 17 state records when she graduated from Terry Sanford in 1996, including 39.1 points per game as a junior, 71.6% shooting from the floor as a junior, and 18 assists in a single game. She was an NCHSAA Athlete of the Year, WBCA All-American and USA TODAY National Player of the Year in high school. She finished with 3,002 points in her high school career.
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She went on to play for coach Geno Auriemma at UConn, which had just one the first of its 11 national championships. Ralph would help the Huskies secure No. 2 in 2000 as the Big East Player of the Year, Final Four MVP and Honda Award winner. Despite suffering five ACL injuries in her playing career, Ralph finished with 1,678 points at UConn.
She began her coaching career at Pittsburgh in 2003 and spent 13 years on Auriemma's bench, winning six national titles with the Huskies before being hired as head coach at Vanderbilt in 2021.
The group of 11 will be enshrined during the 60th annual Induction Celebration on Friday, May 10, at the Charlotte Convention Center at 5 p.m. Their induction will bring the total number of Hall of Fame members to 411.
“This year’s class joining the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame is dynamic in many ways,” Dr. Jerry McGee, president of the hall’s board of directors, said in a press release. “Not only are they part of a milestone group, given that this is the sixtieth Induction Celebration, they are representative of the reach throughout the Charlotte community, the state of North Carolina, the United States, and beyond.”
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Shea Ralph, Steve Smith NC Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2024
