50 Iowa moments since Title IX: Angie Lee takes Hawkeyes to Big Ten title, earns AP Coach of the Year honors in first year

Editor’s note: This is fifth in a series counting down the Top 50 moments in Iowa Hawkeyes women’s athletics history in the 50 days leading up to the 50th anniversary of Title IX in June.

Angie Lee had plenty of nerves going into 1995-96.

After C. Vivian Stringer left Iowa and Lee became the next head coach of Iowa women’s basketball, she essentially had to “follow a legend” — a legend she also played for and later worked for.

“Nerves in not letting those student-athletes down,” Lee told The Gazette. “Nerves in not wanting to let Coach Stringer down, not wanting to let the university down.”

That season was anything but a letdown. Lee won Associated Press National Coach of the Year honors as the Hawkeyes won a Big Ten title and went to the Sweet 16 with the first-year head coach.

Lee, now retired and living in Arizona, said she had a “bittersweet” feeling winning the award.

“It’s one of those things where, yeah, I should be very excited,” Lee said. “But at the same time, I don’t know that I deserve it. That’s not me. That’s the players. … It kind of shifted the story toward me, which was very uncomfortable.”

Lee gives “all the credit in the world” to the players for the success that year.

“It was really difficult on the players at the time,” Lee said. “They were playing with and for Vivian. … That was a hard transition for them.”

The team had plenty of early success, racking up wins against No. 13 Kansas on the road, No. 16 North Carolina with a not-so-favorable neutral site location, No. 17 Wisconsin and No. 18 Purdue.

“I wouldn’t say that those were surprises, but more expectations of this is what we’re capable of doing and what we can do and what we should be doing,” Lee said.

The season was almost going too well. At one point, the Hawkeyes were 20-1, with the only loss coming to a top-10 Georgia team.

“As wonderful as that is, there also is sometimes that lesson in loss that helps you get more wins,” Lee said.

Iowa hosted the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament, beating Butler and DePaul en route to Iowa’s first Sweet 16 in three years.

The season ended with an 11-point loss to Vanderbilt. If Lee could choose between the AP National Coach of the Year honors or a deeper postseason run, there’s no doubt about what she would have picked.

“I would have loved to have been able to pull off a national championship,” Lee said. “I would trade that in a heartbeat.”

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