Kenny Brooks is the ninth coach in UK women’s basketball history. See who came before him.

Former Virginia Tech coach Kenny Brooks was named the ninth head coach in the modern history of Kentucky’s women’s basketball program Tuesday. Brooks inherits a program that has won two SEC regular season championships and two SEC Tournaments but has a losing record all-time in SEC play.

Can Brooks take the Wildcats to new heights? Here is a look at how the previous eight coaches in the program’s modern history fared.

Sue Feamster (1971-76)

Women’s basketball was a varsity sport at UK from 1903 to 1925 when the university senate abolished it for being “too strenuous” for women. Feamster served a vital role in bringing women’s sports back to the university and became the program’s first coach when it returned in 1971 as a club sport. She coached the team for its first two seasons as a varsity program beginning in 1974, compiling a 29-21 record. In 2022, Feamster was inducted into the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame in recognition for her advocacy of women’s sports in the state. Feamster remained at UK as an administrator after handing the reins of the women’s basketball team to Debbie Yow.

Debbie Yow (1976-80)

Yow led Kentucky to the national playoffs for the first time with a 1980 berth in the Association of Intercollegiate Women’s Athletics Tournament. In four seasons she won 66.4% of her games (79-40). Yow went on to coach at Oral Roberts and Florida before shifting to athletics administration. She served as athletics director at Saint Louis, Maryland and North Carolina State before retiring in 2019.

Terry Hall (1980-87)

Hall’s tenure at Kentucky saw women’s basketball become an NCAA-sponsored sport. She came to Lexington after previous coaching stops at EKU and Louisville. The Wildcats reached the NCAA Tournament in her first two years in 1982 and 1983. The Wildcats won two games in the 1982 tournament, losing to eventual national champion Louisiana Tech in the Midwest Regional finals. Hall became the first UK coach to reach 100 wins, finishing her Kentucky career with a 138-66 record and three NCAA Tournament appearances.

Sharon Fanning (1987-95)

Fanning overcame losing records in her first two seasons as coach to lead UK to the 1990 NWIT championship. She ended the Wildcats’ five-year NCAA Tournament drought the next season but did not return to postseason play as UK’s coach. Fanning was 134-97 at Kentucky. She spent 17 seasons as Mississippi State’s head coach after leaving UK.

Bernadette Mattox (1995-2003)

Mattox first rose to prominence at UK when Rick Pitino hired her as the first female assistant “bench” coach for a Division I men’s basketball team in 1990. She eventually took over the women’s team in 1995 but recorded just two winning records in eight seasons leading the program. She led Kentucky to the NCAA Tournament in 1999. The Wildcats reached the second round that season, marking just the second season the program had won an NCAA Tournament game. Mattox finished her UK tenure with a record of 91-135.

Mickie DeMoss (2003-07)

DeMoss inherited a program coming off three consecutive losing seasons but needed just two years to return the Wildcats to postseason play. Kentucky reached the WNIT Final Four in 2005 with DeMoss as coach then returned to the NCAA Tournament in 2006, winning one game there. She became the first UK coach to win SEC Coach of the Year in 2006. The Wildcats upset No. 1-ranked Tennessee in Rupp Arena that season. DeMoss, who went 71-56 at Kentucky, abruptly resigned after the 2006-07 season, later citing burnout as the reason for her departure. She never led her own program again, instead serving as an assistant coach at six different college programs and one NBA team from 2007 to 2022. She was named to the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018.

Matthew Mitchell (2007-20)

An assistant on DeMoss’s first two UK staffs, Mitchell was hired to replace her after two years as Morehead State head coach. He eventually became the most successful coach in program history, winning 69.4% of his games with 303 total victories. He led UK to nine NCAA Tournament appearances in his first 12 seasons, including eight straight from 2010 to 2017. The Wildcats reached the Elite Eight three times in Mitchell’s tenure and were poised for another NCAA Tournament berth in 2020 before the tournament was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Mitchell chose to retire from coaching after offseason brain surgery shortly before the start of the 2020-21 season.

Kyra Elzy (2020-23)

Named interim head coach just two weeks before the start of the 2020-21 season, Elzy led the Wildcats to the second round of the 2021 NCAA Tournament to earn the full-time job. Her second season featured the program’s improbable run to its second SEC Tournament title after a middling regular season, but an exodus of transfers contributed to her failing to build on that momentum. After back-to-back 12-win seasons, Elzy was fired in March. She finished her UK career with a 61-60 record.

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