Big South Annual Female Athlete of the Year Award to be Named in Honor of Wanda Watkins
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (www.BigSouthSports.com) – The Big South Conference announced today that its annual Female Athlete of the Year Award will be named in honor of Big South Hall of Fame member Wanda Watkins, beginning with the 2021-22 honoree that will be determined next month. The award was established in March 2000 to recognize the top female athlete from the most recently-completed season, and the candidates consist of the Players of the Year from each sport. The Big South Male Athlete of the Year Award is named in honor of former Charleston Southern Athletic Director and Big South Co-Founder Howard Bagwell.
“We are thrilled to announce the naming of the Big South Conference Female Athlete of the Year Award after Wanda Watkins,” said Big South Commissioner Kyle Kallander. “Wanda is a true legend in the Big South, and a pioneer in women’s collegiate sports. She is highly decorated at Campbell University and in the Big South, but her real impact has come in the lives of the student-athletes that benefited from having her as a coach and mentor. We couldn’t have anyone more deserving of this honor than Wanda Watkins.”
Watkins spent 35 years as Campbell’s women’s basketball head coach before retiring after the 2015-16 season, and her official coaching tenure in the Big South totaled 14 years from 1986-94 and 2011-16. She went 230-145 overall during her time in the Big South, which included a 135-67 record in conference games -- still the third-most overall wins among the Big South’s women’s basketball coaches, and the fourth-most for league games. A two-time regular-season champion (1988, 1991), Watkins directed the Camels to the first six Big South Championship games (1987-92), and finished 16-12 in the conference tournament with a title in 1989. Her six title game appearances remain second-most in league history. Watkins was voted Big South Coach of the Year twice (1987, 1991) and won at least 20 games five times during her time in the conference.
She retired as the 29th-winningest head coach in NCAA Division I women’s basketball at 549-443, and in 2015-16 was one of 14 active coaches in Division I to serve 30-plus years at the same institution. Watkins finished her coaching career with 10 conference championship game appearances (six – Big South, four – ASUN) and won two crowns, as her 2000 squad clinched the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament berth. Watkins, who was Campbell’s first female scholarship student-athlete in 1975, was named the team’s graduate assistant coach in 1979, was hired as the school’s first full-time assistant coach in 1980, and was promoted to head coach in 1981. She graduated more than 95 percent of her student-athletes while at Campbell, and now serves as Senior Associate Athletics Director after moving into the Senior Woman Administrator position when she retired from coaching. She was also Campbell’s Interim Director of Athletics in 2018-19. Watkins, who also sits on various Big South committees, was inducted into the Big South Conference Hall of Fame in 2019, and into Campbell’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 2017.