Long-time University of the Incarnate Word women’s basketball head coach Angela Lawson moved into athletic administration in the spring of 2013 and is currently the Senior Associate Director of Athletics/Academic Affairs/SWA.
Lawson holds the program’s record for most wins with a 190-174 record in 13 seasons. She consistently put the Cardinals in a position to compete for conference championships. She guided the team to nine winning seasons, including a pair of 20-win seasons.
Lawson led the program to a pair of Lone Star Conference Tournament appearances over her final two seasons in 2011-12 and 2012-13. In 2011-12, the guided the team to the conference championship game where they eventually lost by four points to Tarleton State.
Lawson’s most successful seasons came during the Nia Torru era. Torru was a four-time first team all-Heartland Conference player and was the Most Valuable Player as a junior and senior in 2008-09 and 2009-10.
The 2008-09 team went 21-9 and finished second in the conference in the regular season. In the conference tournament they knocked off Texas A&M-International in the semifinals and then upset #16 St. Mary’s, 61-59 in the championship game. Jasmine Smith scored the game-winning bucket with six seconds remaining and was named the tournament MVP. The team lost to Washburn in the school’s first ever appearance in the NCAA Division II Tournament.
The following season, Lawson guided the Cardinals to a 20-9 record and a Heartland Conference regular season title. She was named the Conference Coach of the Year. The team was not so fortunate in the conference tournament losing to St. Mary’s in the championship game.
Prior to their run of 20-win seasons, the Cardinals went 17-11 in 2007-08. In addition to Torru, Lawson also had Kim Robinson who was named the Heartland Defensive Player of the Year and was first team all-conference.
Torru began her career for Lawson in 2006-07 and was named the Heartland Freshman of the Year after leading the team to a 15-14 record and berth in the conference championship game.
Prior to the Torru era, Lawson coached another star player... Amy Mueller. Mueller was Lawson’s first big recruit and she proved to be the real deal earning Heartland Freshman of the Year honors in 2001-02 and she was a three-time first team all-conference selection.
In 2004-05, Lawson led the Cardinals to a 17-12 mark and an appearance in the conference title game. In addition to Mueller, Lawson brought in Heartland Newcomer of the Year Erika Pink to the squad.
The 2003-04 squad racked up an 18-11 mark and advanced to the conference championship game. Just like the 2004-05 season, the Cardinals lost to Drury in the championship contest.
Lawson’s first winning season came in her third year with the program. She pushed the Cardinals to a 15-12 record in 2002-03. Michelle Viverette was named the UIW Student-Athlete of the Year for a second straight season, the only player Lawson has coached to earn the award.
Lawson joined the Cardinals in 2000-01 taking over a team that lost four starters to transfer, but persevered through a 6-21 season and quickly got the program on the right track.
Lawson has a long history of being successful on the basketball court – be it as a player in high school, an assistant coach or as the person in charge of her own program. A native of Longview in the Texas Piney Woods area, she was an all-state selection and an All-American pick for a team that won the Texas state 5A title. That same year she was the state tournament MVP and was named Texas Miss Basketball.
During her high school days, while determined to get a college scholarship to play more basketball, she recalls spending every summer in the hot, un-air-conditioned gym playing with the guys who she convinced to teach her how to shoot the jump shot. She was recruited heavily by colleges across the nation, but Louisiana Tech, practically in her backyard just two hours away in Ruston, Louisiana, earned her commitment. The Lady Techsters had won national titles and nothing would change when Lawson arrived. A starter for three seasons, Lawson and La Tech won an NCAA title in 1988, her senior year.
Always intending to be a coach, she took her education northward to another haven of women’s hoops, the University of Tennessee. Two years in Knoxville as a graduate assistant earned her a master’s degree and the Lady Vols won a national title the second season as Lawson learned under one of the greatest basketball minds in college history under Pat Summit.
After her time in Knoxville, she spent three years as an assistant at Southwest Texas State, then six years at Baylor. Then came her turn as a head coach when Incarnate Word came calling in the spring of 2000. Incarnate Word, she said at the time, “is absolutely the right place for me to start my head coaching career.”
Her parents, Charles and Kathie, reside in Longview, Texas, and she has an older sister named Melanie who has two children – Jared and Rhett – and is a great aunt to Jared’s three children.
