BY EARL VAUGHAN | CityView Sports Columnist
It’s been almost 30 years since Shea Ralph was a dominating high school basketball figure in North Carolina, yet her name still crisscrosses the pages of the N.C. High School Athletic Association sports record book.
Add to that her All-American days at the University of Connecticut, followed by a coaching career that took her from assistant jobs at Pittsburgh and UConn to head coach at Vanderbilt, and it’s understandable why the N.C. Sports Hall of Fame honored Ralph as a member of its class of inductees for 2024.
According to the NCHSAA record book, Ralph is one of only seven women’s basketball players in state history to score more than 3,000 points in a career.
She still ranks No. 1 in state history with highest scoring average for a career, 33.0 per game, and a single season, 39.1 in her Terry Sanford junior year of 1994-95.
Ralph, on a recruiting trip for Vanderbilt, took time waiting for a flight back to Nashville to talk about her selection.
“I’m completely honored and humbled,’’ she said. “There are so many great sports figures that have come from our state. I know I’m amongst a very elite few.’’
Ralph expressed appreciation for the members of the selection committee who voted for her, adding she realizes they had an impressive list of candidates to choose from.
She also thanked friends and family from Fayetteville and the Terry Sanford community who supported her during her rise to stardom.
“We played at N.C. State a few weeks ago,’’ Ralph said of her Vanderbilt team. “A couple of my teachers, and my old junior high coach came to the game.’’
So did Austin Lehman, renowned ballhandling and shooting specialist who conducted camps for years, including some Ralph attended when she was just learning the sport.
“It was really cool to see these people who are still following me and still supporting me after all these years,’’ she said. “I know I would not be where I’m at now had they not done that.’’
She hopes she can use the honor in her ongoing work with young athletes who are seeking to follow in her footsteps, adding that her career wasn’t linear.
“I had adversity and struggles just like everybody else did,’’ she said.
Some of Ralph’s struggles were unique. For years she battled anorexia nervosa. And her hopes of playing professional basketball were hurt by a series of knee injuries, five in all, that prevented her from realizing that dream.
“God had other plans for me,’’ she said, “and sports has given me just a beautiful life.’’
A big part of that life was spent at UConn, first as a player and then as assistant coach under the legendary Geno Auriemma, winner of multiple NCAA championships.
“What a shame it would be for me to not use the knowledge I’m gaining and that I gained spending half my life at basically the Disney World of college women’s basketball,’’ she said of her UConn years.
She said Vanderbilt is a perfect place to put her knowledge to work, although she’s faced challenges there, too, especially last season when injuries decimated her squad.
“The foundation had to be rebuilt and the program needed to be healed,’’ Ralph said of Vanderbilt.
She said her focus is on creating sustainable excellence. She gives a lot of credit to her coaching staff, which she calls the best in the country.
Ralph doesn’t feel her team has all the pieces to make a run at the Final Four. She plans to devote the next couple of years to finding those missing pieces by bringing in both high-level human beings and high-level talent, then developing it so Vanderbilt can be a consistent top four team in the tough Southeastern Conference.
“We want to be somebody who can go to the NCAA tournament and be competitive,’’ she said.
Other members of the 2024 class of the N.C. Sports Hall of Fame include Wake Forest basketball standout Randolph Childress, UNC-Asheville women’s basketball star and Clarkton native Sheila Ford Duncan, Olympic rower Caroline Lind, Davidson College basketball coach Bob McKillop, CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz, former NFL star Pettis Norman, UNC-Chapel Hill men’s tennis coach Don Skakle, former Carolina Panthers star Steve Smith Sr., NCHSAA commissioner Que Tucker and former Wake Forest athletic director Ron Wellman.
The induction ceremony will be held Friday, May 10, at 5 p.m. at the Charlotte Convention Center. Hall membership will be 411 when the new class is added.
