Wake Forest University and all-time women’s basketball wins leader Jen Hoover have agreed to a long-term contract extension, director of athletics John Currie announced on Wednesday.
“Wake Forest and our entire staff is proud of the work Coach Jen Hoover has done in building our women’s basketball program and returning the Demon Deacons to the NCAA Tournament last season,” director of athletics John Currie said. “Coach Hoover has done an outstanding job of creating relationships with our alums and developing student-athletes that help our program win on and off the floor.”
“My family and I are extremely lucky to call Wake Forest home,” head coach Jen Hoover said. “I truly believe there is not a more special place in the country. When I came back to Wake Forest, I knew this was a place that not only could compete for championships, but deserved to win championships. I am excited about the direction of our program and thankful to John Currie and Ron Wellman who have supported and provided us with the necessary resources to chase those goals.”
Jen Hoover is synonymous with success within Wake Forest women’s basketball. In the 2020-21 season, Hoover earned the top spot on the Demon Deacons’ all-time win list with the Deacs’ ACC Tournament victory over North Carolina on March 4.
Her 126 wins across nine seasons culminated in Wake Forest’s first bid to the NCAA Tournament since 1988, when Hoover was a student-athlete on that very team. The Deacs earned a No. 9 seed and faced Oklahoma State in the first round of the 2021 tournament.
Prior to 2021, Hoover became just the second coach ever to take the Demon Deacons to postseason play in back-to-back seasons, when Wake Forest earned bids to the WNIT in 2016 and 2017.
Hoover has coached players to All-ACC teams seven times in her time at the helm of her alma mater, while three additional Deacs earned All-ACC Freshman honors. Her student-athletes have earned Academic All-ACC honors fifteen times, including a program record four players from the 2020-21 team this past season.
In 2014-15, Dearica Hamby broke her coach’s program records for career points and rebounds, while earning her second Honorable Mention All-America honors.
Hamby went on to become the first Demon Deacon to ever be selected in the WNBA Draft when she was taken sixth overall by the San Antonio Stars in 2015. She has gone on to earn back-to-back WNBA Sixth Woman of the Year Awards, helping the now Las Vegas Aces reach the WNBA Finals in 2020.
Ivana Raca recently became the second Deac ever drafted in the WNBA draft, as well as the second coached by Hoover, when the Los Angeles Sparks selected her in the 2021 draft following the 2020-21 season.
Prior to coaching Wake Forest, Hoover was the women’s basketball coach at High Point University after a long career as an assistant coach around the NCAA, developing a reputation as one of the best coaches for developing post players in the country. Since her coaching career began in 1994, Hoover has assisted in stints at Cal, Virginia, Memphis, James Madison, East Carolina, VCU and Missouri-Kansas City.
As a player, Hoover was in a class of her own at Wake Forest. She was named one of the ACC’s top-50 all-time players for the conference’s 50th anniversary team and is still one of only two Demon Deacons to surpass 1,000 career points and 1,000 career rebounds. She was inducted into the Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame as a student-athlete in 2007.
