By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Highland Park and Washburn University graduate Billie Jean Moore, a women's basketball coaching legend and coach of the United States' women's Olympic team, passed away Thursday at her home in Fullerton, Calif. at the age of 79.
A member of Highland Park's Wall of Honor, the Washburn Athletic Hall of Fame and the Topeka Shawnee County Hall of Fame along with numerous other honors, Moore was the first coach in women's basketball history to coach two different colleges to national championships.
She coached at California State-Fullerton from 1969 to 1977 where she won the AIAW national title in 1970 in her first year with the team.
Moore went on to coach at UCLA from 1977 to 1993 and claimed the AIAW national title in 1978. Moore became the eighth coach in women’s basketball history to reach the 400-win mark and her overall college coaching record was 436-196.
Moore was the head coach for the first-ever United States Olympic women's basketball team in 1976 and led the Americans to the silver medal.
She was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999.
Prior to her coaching exploits, Moore was a local fast-pitch softball legend as the star third baseman for Topeka’s nationally renowned Ohse Meats fast-pitch softball team.
