Lindy La Rocque (born December 15, 1989) is an American

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

coach who is currently the head coach of the women's basketball team at the

University of Nevada, Las Vegas The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is a public land-grant research university in Paradise, Nevada. The campus is about east of the Las Vegas Strip. It was formerly part of the University of Nevada from 1957 to 1969. It includes the S ...

(UNLV).

Early life and education

La Rocque was born in

Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

. She graduated from Durango High School in Las Vegas in 2008. At Durango, La Rocque played at

shooting guard The shooting guard (SG), also known as the two, two guard or off guard,Shooting guards are 6'3"–6'7"BBC Sports academy URL last accessed 2006-09-09. is one of the five traditional positions in a regulation basketball game. A shooting guard's m ...

. With her strengths being in scoring and three-point shooting, La Rocque won Nevada All-State honors in all four years, second team honors in 2005 and 2006 then first team honors in 2007 and 2008. With a 4.7 GPA, La Rocque was the valedictorian of her high school class.

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

graded La Rocque 70 points out of 100 as a high school recruit. On November 14, 2007, La Rocque signed her letter of intent to play college basketball for

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

. Playing under head coach

Tara VanDerveer Tara Ann VanDerveer (born June 26, 1953) is an American basketball coach who has been the head women's basketball coach at Stanford University since 1985. Designated the Setsuko Ishiyama Director of Women's Basketball, VanDerveer led the Stanfor ...

from 2008 to 2012, La Rocque played 138 games with 43 starts, averaging 3.1 points, 0.9 rebounds, and 1.5 assists in 15.3 minutes per game. La Rocque graduated from Stanford with a bachelor's degree in

science, technology, and society Science and technology studies (STS) is an interdisciplinary field that examines the creation, development, and consequences of science and technology in their historical, cultural, and social contexts. History Like most interdisciplinary fie ...

, with an emphasis on

earth systems Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surface ...

civil and environmental engineering Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewage ...

, and

calculus Calculus, originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the calculus of infinitesimals", is the mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithm ...

Career

Early coaching career (2013–2020)

After graduating from Stanford, La Rocque enrolled at the

University of Oklahoma The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Public university, public research university in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two Territories became the state of Oklahom ...

in 2013 and served for two seasons as a graduate assistant for

Oklahoma Sooners women's basketball The Oklahoma Sooners women's basketball team represents the University of Oklahoma (OU) and competes in the Big 12 Conference of NCAA Division I. History OU women's basketball began during the 1974–75 academic year. In March 1990, Oklahoma offi ...

under head coach

Sherri Coale Sherri Kay Coale (born January 19, 1965) is a retired college basketball coach. She was the head coach of the University of Oklahoma Sooners women's basketball team for 25 years, from 1996 to 2021. Coale was inducted into the Women's Basketball H ...

. Oklahoma appeared in the

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

and

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

NCAA Tournaments. La Rocque graduated from Oklahoma in 2015 with a master's degree in adult and higher education. From 2015 to 2017, La Rocque was an assistant coach under head coach

Cameron Newbauer Cameron Michael Newbauer (born June 12, 1978) is an American college basketball coach. He most recently was the former head coach of the women's college basketball, women's basketball program at the University of Florida from 2017 through 2021. Bi ...

Belmont Belmont may refer to: People * Belmont (surname) Places * Belmont Abbey (disambiguation) * Belmont Historic District (disambiguation) * Belmont Hotel (disambiguation) * Belmont Park (disambiguation) * Belmont Plantation (disambiguation) * Belmon ...

, during which Belmont appeared in the

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

and

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

NCAA Tournaments. Returning to her alma mater, La Rocque was an assistant coach at Stanford from 2017 to 2020 again under VanDerveer. In those three seasons, Stanford went 82–22 (43–10 in

Pac-12 The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...

games) and appeared in the NCAA Tournament twice, advancing to the Elite Eight in

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

UNLV (2020–present)

On March 18, 2020, the

(UNLV) hired La Rocque to be women's basketball head coach, nearly two weeks after the resignation of previous head coach

Kathy Olivier Katherine Ann Olivier (née Ricks; born November 6, 1959) is an American college basketball coach who most recently was the women's basketball head coach at UNLV. She resigned from that position on March 6, 2020. Early life and education Born Kat ...

. At the time of her hiring, La Rocque was the second-youngest coach in Division I women's basketball at the age of 30. In 2021, the

Mountain West Conference The Mountain West Conference (MW) is one of the collegiate athletic conferences affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) (formerly I-A). The MW officially began operations o ...

named La Rocque its Coach of the Year in women's basketball after La Rocque's debut season in which UNLV finished 13–5 in Mountain West play and second in conference standings. The 2022–23 UNLV team was La Rocque's most successful with a perfect 18–0 record in Mountain West regular season games, the first season where UNLV went undefeated in conference play since going 8–0 in the PCAA in 1984–85. In mid-February 2023, UNLV was ranked no. 23 in the

AP Poll The Associated Press poll (AP poll) provides weekly rankings of the top 25 NCAA teams in one of three Division I college sports: football, men's basketball and women's basketball. The rankings are compiled by polling 62 sportswriters and broadca ...

, UNLV's first top 25 ranking in that poll since 1994.

Head coaching record

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:La Rocque, Lindy 1989 births Living people Sportspeople from Las Vegas Basketball players from Nevada Basketball coaches from Nevada Guards (basketball) Stanford Cardinal women's basketball players Oklahoma Sooners women's basketball coaches Belmont Bruins women's basketball coaches Stanford Cardinal women's basketball coaches UNLV Lady Rebels basketball coaches University of Oklahoma alumni Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences alumni