South Dakota State University Athletics
FISH TO BE PRESENTED RALPH GINN AWARD
9/1/2022 1:00:00 PM | General
Longtime St. Cloud State women's basketball coach and former Jackrabbit player and assistant coach Lori Fish has been named the 2022 recipient of the Ralph Ginn Award for Coaching Excellence at South Dakota State University.
Fish will be honored in conjunction with Jackrabbit Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremonies Oct. 1.
In 18 seasons as a collegiate head coach, Fish has compiled a 289-206 overall record. She engineered a successful turnaround in four seasons at Minnesota State, Mankato, posting a 62-53 record from 2005-08, followed by a 227-153 mark as she enters her 15th season at St. Cloud State. Her teams have made five appearances in the NCAA Division II postseason and won two conference tournament titles.
During the 2021-22 season, Fish was named the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Coach of the Year after leading the Huskies to their first regular season conference title since the 1983-84 season, finishing with a 24-5 record. She also was named the WBCA Central Region Coach of the Year following both the 2019-20 and 2021-22 seasons.
Overall, Fish has coached at the collegiate level for 29 years. She began her collegiate coaching career as a graduate assistant for a Jackrabbit program that made back-to-back Division II tournament appearances during the 1993-94 and 1994-95 seasons. She moved on to Eastern Illinois for one season before returning to SDSU as a full-time assistant during the 1996-97 campaign. After three seasons at SDSU, which included another postseason berth, Fish moved back to her hometown of St. Cloud, Minnesota, to serve as an assistant coach at St. Cloud State from 1999 until accepting her first head coaching position at Minnesota State.
Fish will be inducted into the Minnesota Girls Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame later this fall and also is a member of the St. Cloud Tech High School Hall of Fame.
A 1991 graduate of SDSU, Fish was an all-North Central Conference selection her senior season after averaging 16 points, 5.9 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game. She finished her career with 1,133 points in 112 career games.
Fish will be the 45th recipient of the Ralph Ginn Award for Coaching Excellence since it was first awarded in 1972. Recipients of the award must be graduates of SDSU and have distinguished themselves in the field of coaching and education. The award's namesake coached football at South Dakota State from 1947-68, compiling a 113-89-9 record with nine North Central Conference titles in 22 seasons. Ginn's victory total stood as the most in program history until being passed by current Jackrabbit head coach John Stiegelmeier during the 2014 season.
-GoJacks.com-
