Sue Guevara

Sue Guevara was born in Saginaw and attended the St. Stephen High School, where she graduated in 1972. She attended Saginaw Valley State where she was a standout basketball player. Guevara earned her bachelor’s degree in 1982 from Saginaw Valley and her master’s degree from Ohio State University in 1985. She began her coaching career on the softball diamond at her alma mater where she was the head softball coach and assistant women’s basketball coach from 1979-84. She was named Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Softball Coach of the Year in 1984. Guevara was a graduate assistant at Ohio State University for one season (1984-85) and an assistant coach at Ball State University the next season before becoming an assistant and an associate basketball coach at Michigan State University from 1987-1996. Guevara was then hired as the University of Michigan’s women’s basketball coach where she compiled a record of 123-82 (.600) from 1996-2003, including a 57-55 Big Ten mark. U-M had finished a combined 20-88 in the four seasons prior to Guevara’s arrival in Ann Arbor. The 123 victories were the most-ever for a Michigan women’s team before it was surpassed this past season. Three of her seven Michigan teams earned NCAA Tournament bids and two participated in the Women’s NIT. Guevara was the Big Ten’s Coach of the Year in 1998 and 2000. Guevara led the Big Ten All-Star team on a European tour through Austria, Slovakia and Hungary in 2000. She also was an assistant coach for the 1993 Big Ten tour team that recorded a perfect 6-0 record while playing in England and Scotland. Guevara served three seasons as assistant basketball coach at Auburn University before accepting the head coach position at Central Michigan University in 2008. She recently completed her 11th year coaching the Chippewas and is CMU’s all-time winningest women’s basketball coach with a 206-147 record. Her teams have won a Mid-American Conference tournament, two MAC West titles and six times her teams have won postseason tournament bids. This past season was the best in school history as the Chippewas reached the 30-win plateau and qualified for the NCAA Tournament for the second time ever. CMU won the Mid-American Conference regular-season and tournament titles and was named the MAC Coach of the Year for the second time in three seasons. The Chippewas won the first two NCAA Tournament games in program history in reaching the Sweet Sixteen. CMU, seeded 11th in its region, opened the tournament with an upset of sixth-seeded LSU and then, two days later, upset third-seeded Ohio State before falling to No. 2 seed Oregon. The Chippewas finished the season ranked 20th in the final USA Today Top 25 Coaches Poll. They were also ranked No. 1 in the CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Top 25. Guevara, who has over 300 career college basketball coaching victories, is the 2018 recipient of the Kay Yow National Coach of the Year Award, which was established in 2010 to honor the Division I women’s head coach who embodies a winning spirit and displays great character both on and off the court.