Jefferson basketball coach Herb Magee named 2022 NCAA President’s Pat Summitt Award recipient
The award recognizes “an individual in the Association’s membership who has demonstrated devotion to the development of student-athletes and has made a positive impact on their lives.”
Herb Magee, the Thomas Jefferson University men’s basketball coach, has been selected as the recipient of the 2022 NCAA President’s Pat Summitt Award.
The award, named after the late Tennessee women’s basketball coach, recognizes “an individual in the Association’s membership who has demonstrated devotion to the development of student-athletes and has made a positive impact on their lives.”
Magee, who plans to retire after the season, is the second-winningest men’s coach in NCAA history — behind only Mike Krzyzewski — with 1,132 victories. The 80-year-old, who was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2011, is in his 54th season at Jefferson (previously Philadelphia Textile and later Philadelphia University) and led the Rams to the Division II national championship in 1970.
» READ MORE: Jefferson coach Herb Magee to retire after 2021-22 season
Summitt won 1,098 games in her 38-year career that ended in 2012.
“As you can imagine, nobody wins that many games without knowing what they’re doing,” Magee said. “I was very, very impressed with Pat. So to receive an honor, an award, named after her is a very high honor for me. I am thrilled to receive this award.”
NCAA president Mark Emmert will present the award virtually following his State of College Sports address on Thursday.
“Herb Magee‘s passion and enthusiasm for basketball is recognized not only by his 50-plus year coaching career but also in the numerous accolades he’s earned in that time,” Emmert said. “Coach Magee’s enduring legacy of pursuing excellence as a leader for student-athletes on and off the court makes him an excellent Summitt Awardee.”
Selected annually, Summitt Award winners also receive a $10,000 honorarium to donate to an organization of the honoree’s choice that combats or researches neurological diseases of the brain. Magee intends to direct his honorarium to support Alzheimer’s research in Jefferson Health’s Vickie and Jack Farber Institute for Neuroscience.
The previous winners of the Summitt Award are former Tennessee women’s athletic director Joan Cronan (2017); former MIT athletic director Julie Soriero (2018); former Michigan professor and longtime faculty athletics representative Percy Bates (2019); former Vanderbilt vice chancellor and AD David Williams II (2020); and former Connecticut field hockey coach Nancy Stevens (2021).