Gary Blair

Gary Claude Blair (born August 10, 1945) is a retired women's basketball head coach.

He grew up playing baseball, and as a 128-pound center fielder at Bryan Adams High School, he received all-city honors in 1963.

Following his high school graduation in 1963, he enrolled at Texas Tech University, where he failed out of architecture, and moved to California to become a restaurant manager.

He got a U.S. Army draft notice in 1969, and decided to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps, completing a two-year tour of duty.

He was stationed in Okinawa during his duty.

After his tour, he lived in the Los Angeles area, running a restaurant in Costa Mesa and Culver City.

At age 27, he used his G.I. Bill to earn a bachelor's degree in health and physical education with a minor in journalism from Texas Tech.

He also played a year of baseball for the Red Raiders—he was a defensive center fielder with self-described poor hitting skills.

South Oak Cliff had just started its women's basketball program, and Blair became the team's first coach in 1973.

He was initially the boy's P.E. teacher, while waiting for an offer to coach the baseball team, but when asked to coach the girls' team, he accepted.

He also started the boys and girls golf team, and served as its first coach as well.

He made $7,000 annually coaching all of these sports.

In his seven seasons at South Oak Cliff, he set a state record with five consecutive state tournament appearances and a 239-18 record.

He earned his master's degree in education from the school in 1974.

His teams won three state Class 4A championships, in 1977, 1978, and 1980, and finished as the runner-up in 1979 by only two points.

For his efforts, Blair was inducted into the Texas High School Basketball Hall of Fame.

At South Oak Cliff, Blair coached Debra and Kim Rodman, Dennis Rodman's sisters.

Blair used to play ping pong with Dennis.

After winning the first state championship, he was offered the head baseball job he had been waiting for, but he turned it down to remain coaching the women's teams.

In October 1980, Blair was offered an assistant coaching job at Louisiana Tech by then-head coach Sonja Hogg.

At the time of the offer, Blair was making an annual salary of $22,000.

The Louisiana Tech position paid $22,500 and also provided a six-year-old brown station wagon.

Blair initially rejected the offer, but upon his wife's encouragement, he accepted it.

He would coach under Leon Barmore, who replaced Hogg.

During his five seasons there, Louisiana Tech reached the Final Four in the NCAA Tournament four times, winning two national championships.

Blair's first head coaching experience at the collegiate level came at Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, Texas.

In his eight years with the school, he compiled a 210-43 record, including 25 wins in just his second season as a head coach.

His teams won seven straight conference championships, and appeared in the NCAA Tournament six times.

During his last six seasons, his teams were consistently ranked in the final AP Top 25 polls.

The team's success was noticed by their fans, who increased home attendance enough to allow the school to rank in the top 12 of NCAA Division 1 attendance leaders.

In his 37 years as a collegiate head coach, Blair only suffered two losing seasons, and has reached postseason play 28 times, including 23 NCAA Tournament appearances and Final Four appearances in 1998 with Arkansas and 2011 with Texas A&M.

He coached for 37 years closing with Texas A&M Aggies women's basketball, who he coached from 2003 until his retirement in 2022.

When head women's basketball coach Marsha Sharp retired from Texas Tech in 2006, Blair got calls from his friends to take over the position.

Blair stated, "It wasn’t the right fit or the right time. Timing is everything in coaching."

After his graduation from Texas Tech, Blair hoped to find a high school baseball coaching job in Lubbock, but he was offered the physical education coach gig at South Oak Cliff High School in Dallas, a predominantly Black school.

He led the Aggies to the NCAA national championship in 2011.

He is listed in the top 35 of the all-time winningest NCAA Division I women's basketball coaches, and he is one of the few coaches to guide three different schools to national rankings and NCAA Tournament berths.

Blair was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013 and the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2023.

Gary Blair is the son of Lee, a plaster foreman, and Jean, a housewife.

He was raised in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Dallas.