Jean Dowell

Year Inducted: 2019

Jean Dowell, a graduate of Union Grove High School, was before her time with women’s athletics. At Union Grove, she was All-State in basketball and softball. She went on to Western Carolina to find out there was no women’s basketball program. She set out to change that and played from 1963-1966, averaging 30 points per game her senior year. She was inducted into the Western Carolina University Sports Hall of Fame in 1992.

After WCU, Dowell became an Amateur Softball Association All-American. She also helped the University of Georgia start its women's basketball program and coached the first UGA teams in 1967-68 and 1968-69. She then went to College of Mount St. Joseph’s to coach from 1970-1994 and in her first season, won the Ohio Intercollegiate Women’s Championship. Under Jean’s tutelage, the Lions made six straight NAIA District 22 appearances (1988-1993), and in 1992 won their first NAIA District 22 Championship advancing to the Final Four of NAIA Division II National Tournament. She had a 342-164 record with the Lions. In 1994, the College of Mount St. Joseph’s renamed the gymnasium, the “Jean Dowell Gymnasium.”

She was inducted into the Greater Cincinnati Sports Hall of Fame in 1997, the College of Mount St. Joseph’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 2010 and the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011. Chapter 9 of former ESPN anchor Betsy Ross’ book "Playing Ball with the Boys" is about Iredell’s own Jean Dowell.