Wisconsin Badgers

At a time when there were hardly any Black head coaches in collegiate athletics, the University of Wisconsin had two coaching its men's and women's basketball teams.

In 1976, Bill Cofield became the first Black head basketball coach in the Big Ten Conference. That same summer, Edwina Qualls was hired as the Big Ten's first Black women's basketball head coach.

Cofield came to Wisconsin from his assistants position at the University of Virginia. The Big Ten Conference, founded in 1896, had never had a Black head coach. Virginia had been the ACC qualifier for the NCAA Tournament in 1976. A native of Carrier Mills, Ill, Cofield was a 1963 graduate of McKendree College in Lebanon, Ill. He received his masters degree from the University of Kentucky.

Prior to his move to Virginia, Cofield was the nation's first Black athletic director and head coach at a predominantly white institution of higher learning at the College of Racine in 1973. He hired current UW men's basketball coach Bo Ryan as his assistant and the duo had a 14-15 record. The College of Racine closed its doors in 1974, and Cofield and Ryan separated for a year only to return to UW-Madison when Cofield accepted the head job and Ryan became his assistant, a position Ryan had through the next UW coaching transition from 1976-84.

While compiling a six year record of 61-103, Cofield did bring several Blue Chip recruits to town including the former all-time leading scorer Claude Gregory and Wes Mathews, who hit a half-court shot be beat Michigan State and Magic Johnson in 1979. Cofield resigned in 1982 and was later diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that same year. He died after a short illness in the summer of 1983 at the age of 43.