Former HBCU women’s basketball head coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis thought about one person as the final seconds ticked off the scoreboard in George Mason’s 73-58 victory against Saint Joseph on Sunday to capture the Atlantic 10 tournament crown.
The win marked the program’s first A-10 tournament championship and earned GMU its first trip to the women’s NCAA tournament in program history. As Blair-Lewis cut a piece of the net and celebrated with her players at Henrico Sports & Events Center, her father – Robert Blair – sat at the front of her mind.
Before establishing a winning culture at GMU, Blair-Lewis coached at Daytona-Beach, FL HBCU Bethune Cookman for 13 years and started her coaching career as an assistant at her alma mater, Largo High School in Prince George’s County, Maryland. After Sunday’s win, Blair-Lewis devoted the championship win to her father.
“My dad is in hospice right now,” Blair-Lewis said in the postgame news conference. “I FaceTimed him before the game; he said, ‘Go win.’ He’s not just my dad. He’s my coach; he’s a big part of the DMV coaching area. I really wish he could have been here and I knew he was here in spirit. … That’s what I thought about in the last minute. This was for my dad.”
GMU finished the regular season – including the tournament – with 27 wins, the most in program history. Much like Blair-Lewis’ success in reviving GMU, she led Bethune Cookman to its first women’s NCAA Tournament appearance in 2019.
The four-time MEAC Coach of the Year led the Wildcats to a 196-168 record overall, produced six winning seasons, and restored a Bethune Cookman program that generated only two winning campaigns in 19 HBCU basketball seasons before she arrived in Daytona Beach, Florida.
About Vanessa Blair-Lewis
Vanessa Blair-Lewis is an accomplished basketball coach with a strong women’s college basketball track record. She began her head coaching career at Mount St. Mary’s University (1998–2007), where she led the team to multiple winning seasons and was named Northeast Conference Coach of the Year in 1999. She later took over as the head coach at Bethune-Cookman University (2008–2021), transforming the program into a perennial contender and securing multiple MEAC regular-season titles and a tournament championship in 2019. In 2021, Blair-Lewis became the head coach at George Mason University, continuing her leadership and player development legacy. Known for her defensive strategies and ability to rebuild programs, she remains a respected figure in women’s college basketball.