source: wbuathletics.com

Former Wayland Baptist Flying Queen Kathy Harston, the senior associate athletics director for sports programs at the University of Texas, has been selected to receive the Harley Redin Coach’s Award.

The Harley Redin Coach’s Award is presented to a Wayland Baptist alumnus who has demonstrated outstanding success as a head coach at the university or public/private school level. The recipient also is recognized for outstanding contributions to community, school and church.
 
The award is named in honor of Wayland’s most successful coach, Harley Redin, who coached a total of 27 years at Wayland.  He led the Pioneers to a 171-97 record and three national tournament appearances from 1948-57, and the Flying Queens to a 431-66 record – including wins in his first 76 games as part of a collegiate-record 131 straight victories – and six Amateur Athletic Union national championships and seven runner-up titles in 18 years.

Coach Redin died Aug. 1, 2020. He would have celebrated his 101st birthday later that month on Aug. 29.

During her playing days with the Flying Queens, Harston was a Kodak All-American and finalist for the 1980 Wade Trophy given to the national player of the year. She led the Flying Queens to the 1977 National Women’s Invitational Tournament championship and to a fourth-place finish at the 1978 AIAW National Championship. In January 2006, she was selected as one of the “Top 25 Players of the Pre-NCAA Basketball Era” by ESPN.com.

Harston, a native of Southlake, Texas, received her bachelor’s degree in physical education from Wayland in 1980 and her master’s degree in education from North Texas in 1982. After two years as an assistant coach at Texas Tech, she was the head girls basketball coach and athletic coordinator for five years at Plainview High School, leading the Lady Bulldogs to the Texas Class 5A state championship in 1986-87 when she was named Texas State High School Coach of the Year.

Harston went on to serve as an assistant coach at UT-Austin for 18 years (1989-2007). She then served as an academic counselor at UT for one year. During her time on the bench alongside Hall of Fame coach Jody Conradt, the Longhorns made 14 NCAA Tournament appearances, including a trip to the Final Four in 2003. Texas also claimed eight total conference championships, including five regular-season titles and three postseason tournament crowns.

After a four-year stint as basketball operations director for the University of Tennessee Lady Vols, Harston returned to the University of Texas in 2012 in her current role, responsible for sport administration of six programs, including day-to-day oversight of women’s basketball. She recently was appointed to a four-year term to serve on the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Competition Committee.

Harston was inducted into the Texas High School Basketball Hall of Fame in 1996 and the Wayland Baptist Athletics Hall of Honor in 2008.

Harston will be presented the Harley Redin Coach’s Award during a ceremony set for 9 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 29, in 211 McClung Center (University Center), at the same time five people – Jim Carlisle, Shahala Hawkins, Alden Mann, Tamyra Mensah-Stock and Mary Williams – will be inducted into the WBU Athletics Hall of Honor.

Harston is the 11th person to receive the Harley Redin Coach’s Award, following Joe Lombard (2000), Marsha Sharp (2001), Rick Cooper (2002), Danny Wrenn (2003), Marsha Porter (2008), Chris Kennedy (2012), Ray Murphree (2017), Valerie Goodwin-Colbert (2018), Brandon Schneider (2019) and Tim Thomas (2020).

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