The Delta State University women’s basketball program has announced the hiring of Tracy Stewart-Lange as its new head coach.
“We are excited to welcome Tracy to the Lady Statesmen staff and are appreciative of the experience and the values she brings to our women’s basketball program,” said Athletic Director Mike Kinnison.
“I am truly humbled to be named the next women’s basketball coach at Delta State University,” Stewart-Lange remarked. “To be able to coach at a place where women’s basketball has such a long and rich tradition of championships and excellence is truly an honor.”
Stewart-Lange is no stranger to success. She joins the #DSUFamily after 17 seasons as the head coach at Lyon College in Batesville, Ark., where she posted a 366-167 overall record. She also led the Scots to a 234-91 American Midwest Conference record, a .720 winning percentage in her tenure.
“Her record stands on its own merit and validates her ability to build, manage, and lead a program that has won at a championship level,” Kinnison stated. “Her vision for a program to compete and win on a national level matches the expectations we have for our program.”
A native of Batesville and a graduate of Lyon, Stewart-Lange led the Scots to 11 consecutive trips to the postseason in National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Division I from the 2011-2012 season through the 2021-2022 campaign. In that stretch, her teams won 24 or more games nine different times. Further, only one time in those 11 years did a team under her leadership lose double-digit games.
Twice an all-conference selection as a player at Lyon, Stewart-Lange has the distinction of leading the Scots to the program’s first-ever conference championship and its first-ever National Tournament appearance.
On the court, Stewart-Lange coached 19 All-American student-athletes and had 49 players earn All-Conference nods for the Scots. She also coached a Conference Player of the Year, three Conference Defensive Players of the Year, and three Conference Newcomers of the Year.
Off the court, Stewart-Lange’s teams have found equal, if not enhanced, success. Her student-athletes earned 118 Academic All-Conference selections, 16 Academic All-American awards, and multiple Champions of Character Awards.
Stewart-Lange orchestrated a rebuild of the Scots program, taking the team from an 11-win squad in her first season to a 30-4 campaign in the 2015-16 season that included the highest national ranking (No. 4) in school history.
She led Lyon to five American Midwest Conference championships (2013, 2016, 2020, 2021, and 2022) and two conference tournament championships in 2016 and 2021. The Scots also made four trips to the NAIA Sweet 16 (2016, 2017, 2019, and 2021).
Stewart-Lange has been honored by her peers as a four-time conference Coach of the Year (2013, 2016, 2020, 2022), and posted the top winning percentage (.775) and total wins (253) mark of any collegiate women’s basketball coach in the state of Arkansas from 2010 to 2020, regardless of division.
Before pushing the Scots onto the national stage, Stewart-Lange served multiple stints as an NCAA Division I head coach and assistant coach. She served as an assistant on coaching staffs at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Mississippi State University, and Texas A&M University.
She also served as the head women’s basketball coach at the University of Arkansas Little Rock from 1998 to 2003, where she recruited a Sun Belt Freshman of the Year and steered the program to wins over Texas A&M, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of South Alabama.
Stewart-Lange began her collegiate playing career at Arkansas State University-Beebe, where she was an all-conference player. After transferring to Lyon, Stewart-Lange led the team in assists and was twice named to the all-conference and all-district teams in the AIC.
She was the winner of the Winnie Marable Award for the outstanding female student-athlete and was named to the Who’s Who Among American College and University Students. She was elected to the Lyon Athletic Hall of Fame in 2000.
She received a B.A. degree in English at Lyon and a Master of Education degree in sports administration at Mississippi State University.
Stewart-Lange and her husband Kel, who is the head tennis coach at Arkansas State University, have a daughter, Hope, and a son, Wes.
“I am very excited to have the opportunity to build on the wonderful foundation laid by so many great coaches, players, and teams at Delta State,” Stewart-Lange said.
Delta State Athletics will host a press conference on Monday, April 18 at 11 a.m. in the Simmons Room of the Hugh Ellis Walker Alumni Foundation House to officially introduce Stewart-Lange. The press conference is open to the public. Delta State faculty, staff, students, and fans are invited to attend.
Photo Courtesy Delta State Athletics
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