User:Fosterraab
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One of the nation's most outstanding on-the-floor coaches and basketball organizers and innovators, Bill Foster was the first coach in the history of the NCAA to guide four different Division I schools (Rutgers, Utah, Duke, South Carolina) to 20-win seasons. Listed in Who’s Who in the United States and Who’s Who International, Foster was named National Coach of the Year in 1978 after leading Duke to a 27-7 record, the NCAA’s Final Four and national championship game against Kentucky. That team’s efforts are chronicled in John Feinstein’s book, "Forever’s Team."
The past eleven years, Coach Foster has worked in athletics administration as a consultant with the Western Athletic Conference and the Big 12 Conference. Previously he was associate commissioner and director of basketball operations for the Southwest Conference.
A Dallas Morning News article described Bill Foster as “still among the most connected men in college basketball.” Coach Foster is a past president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches and currently serves on the board of Trustees for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.; he was that organization’s chief executive from 1996 to 1998.
Foster’s career began at the high school-level in suburban Philadelphia before he moved to Bloomsburg State University in Pennsylvania. Coach Foster spent eight years at Rutgers, that earned a third place finish in the NIT, before moving on to The University of Utah and taking that team to the finals of the NIT.
1974-75 brought Coach Foster to the helm at Duke University where he inherited a team that had finished the previous season with a 10-16 record. Foster’s fourth Duke team went to the NCAA national championship game. While at Duke, Foster’s teams made three straight NCAA tournament appearances and earned a #1 national ranking. He was also named Coach of the Year.
Coach Foster has been named to several sports halls of fame, served as a college basketball analyst for CBS, ESPN and others, coached numerous all-star teams, and had almost 40 players play professional basketball. In 2003, he joined basketball greats like John Wooden, Bill Bradley, Henry Iba and others when he was named the National Invitational Tournament’s “Man of the Year.”
Foster is a native of Norwood, Pa. and currently serves as special assistant to the commissioner of the Western Athletic Conference. Foster served in the United States Air Force and graduated from Elizabethtown College and earned a Master's Degree from Temple University. He is married to Shirley Foster and has four daughters: Vicki, Debbie, Julie, and Mary.
