Awards

IUB Athletics Hall of Fame - 2014

About Bea Gorton

Bea Gorton was Indiana's first women's basketball varsity head coach and led the program from 1972-76. She compiled an overall record of 79-28 (.738), the top winning percentage in school history, and led IU to the Elite Eight of the AIAW national tournament in 1972 and 1974, and an AIAW Final Four appearance in 1973. In 1975, the Hoosiers played in the National Women's Invitation Tournament. Gorton served as an adviser to the AIAW organization from 1975-80. She coached the first and only IU women's All-American, Debbie Oing, and was nominated for the Wade Trophy for women's coach of the year in 1977. Gorton served as a member of the Kodak Coaches All-American Selection Committee in 1975-76, was a speaker at the International Olympic Scientific Congress in 1984 and 1988, and consulted at the Paralympics that were held in New York City in 1984. She has been invited as a lecturer in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Since serving as Indiana's head coach, Gorton worked on the faculty at Wheaton (Ill.) College, Taylor University and Bowling Green State University. She is now retired and living in Carol Stream, Ill.