Cindy Russo (born September 7, 1952) served as the women's basketball head coach at Florida International and Lamar. Retiring in January 2015, her career spanned 39 years with 38 of those years as a head coach. She had several accomplishments over her career. She guided the FIU Panthers to 20 consecutive winning seasons. Her teams also achieved 20 win seasons 18 times. Her teams participated in six

NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament The NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 Women's sports, women's college basketball teams from the NCAA Division I, Division I level of t ...

s, seven WNIT tournaments, and two NCAA Division II Tournaments. Russo was born in

Portsmouth, Virginia Portsmouth is an independent city in southeast Virginia and across the Elizabeth River from Norfolk. As of the 2020 census, the population was 97,915. It is part of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. The Norfolk Naval Shipyard and Naval M ...

and graduated from

Old Dominion University Old Dominion University (Old Dominion or ODU) is a public research university in Norfolk, Virginia. It was established in 1930 as the Norfolk Division of the College of William & Mary and is now one of the largest universities in Virginia with ...

in 1975.

Head coaching record

* 2003–04 wins vacated by the NCAA; FIU originally finished 4th in the East Division.
** Partial season. Coach Russo resigned effective immediately on January 22, 2015. Interim head coach completed the season.

Inge Nissen Inge Nissen is a Danish basketball player and coach. A 2012 inductee to the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, Nissen was a star for the Danish national team and a college All-American at Old Dominion University. After her playing career, Nissen ...

became interim head coach and went 0–13 (all in C-USA), for the team to finish 3–26 (0–18 C-USA) and in 14th place.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Russo, Cindy 1952 births Living people American women's basketball coaches Basketball coaches from Virginia Basketball players from Virginia FIU Panthers women's basketball coaches Lamar Lady Cardinals basketball coaches Old Dominion Monarchs women's basketball coaches Old Dominion Monarchs women's basketball players Sportspeople from Portsmouth, Virginia