Three decades ago, Marsha Sharp and Kay Yow sat together on committee after committee as women’s basketball transitioned into an NCAA sport. Through the rest of their careers, the sometimes rivals but longtime friends each built elite women’s basketball programs, Sharp at Texas Tech and Yow at N.C. State.

“(The sport) was so young,” Sharp said. “We all experienced that growth because it was so young and that gave us a kind of common bond besides being competitors.”

The Women’s Basketball Coaches Association announced Wednesday that Sharp will follow Yow as the recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award. Sharp, who coached the Lady Raiders for 23 seasons, joins a list of 27 recipients including former Wayland Baptist coach Harley Redin and current Tennessee coach Pat Summitt.

Sharp famously developed the Lady Raider dynasty, winning the 1993 national championship and earning herself seven Southwest Conference and Big 12 coach of the year awards along the way.

“I think where her teams played and the championships that they won, she was kind of a pioneer in women’s basketball,” Tech Athletic Director Gerald Myers said. “She is admired and respected by women’s basketball coaches from this era on back to the time when she had those dominating teams.”

At the time, Sharp worried more about trying to win the next game or sign the next recruit than about the national attention her program brought both Tech and sport. Now she realizes it has enabled her work off the court.

“We were really blessed,” Sharp said. “We were able to win some titles, and when you do that you’re able to have a platform to do some things within the community and maybe nationally, causes you have a chance to be a part of.”

Like the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund. Yow fought breast cancer for 22 years before dying of it in January 2009. At that time the WBCA had already established a fund in her honor, and last year Sharp became its first executive director.

The fund, which uses an upside-down pink ribbon as its logo, raised $1.7 million in less than two years after its inception. At Yow’s request, the money is being used to fund clinical trials and cancer research.

“She felt like the last four years of her life she was able to live and live with quality because she had the benefit of some experimental drugs,” Sharp said. “So we’re trying to raise money and put it all into research and put clinical trials with it so maybe people can live with the disease a little better.”

Sharp has also served on the Women’s Protective Services board and co-sponsored the Alzheimer’s Association Memory Gala. She is currently president of the YWCA Board of Directors.

“I’ve really tried to find causes that I believe strongly in,” Sharp said. “Anything to do with children or folks that need a little bit of a helping hand are things that have always caught my eye.”

She stepped down as the Lady Raiders’ coach in 2005, after amassing a 557-175 career record. Since then she has served as Tech’s Associate Athletic Director for Special Projects.

She was inducted into the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame in 1999, the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 2000, the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003 and the Texas Panhandle Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.

“I think she’s deserving of this award just from a standpoint of what she did to contribute to the growth of women’s basketball in the ’80s and a ’90s,” Myers said.

The Jostens-Berenson Lifetime Achievement Award is named for Senda Serenson, who introduced basketball to her female gym students at Smith College in 1892, one year after Dr. James Naismith invented the game.

The WBCA will formally recognize Sharp at it its awards luncheon April 6, during the NCAA Women’s Final Four in San Antonio.

Sharp said she misses the teaching and competition aspects of coaching. She’s most proud of the way the support, from fans to finances, has grown.

“It’s not just at Tech, but all over the country,” she said, “to watch people become passionate about it, and to watch women athletes have opportunities to get their education paid for and play in front of great crowds and go to special places when they travel, I think it’s all been really special.”

Previous recipients include: the late Kay Yow, N.C. State University (2009); Cherri Mankenberg (2008); Brenda Byrd (2007); the late Sue Gunter, Louisiana State University (2006); Charles Heatly, Lindsay High School (2005); Louise O’Neal, Wellesley College (2004); Dr. Charlotte West, Southern Illinois University (2003); Dr. Jill Hutchison, Illinois State University (2002); Bob Spencer, Fresno State (2001); the late Dr. Brenda Reilly, Central Connecticut State University (2000); Betty Wiseman, Belmont University (1999); Dr. Rose Marie Battaglia (1998); Lea Plarski, Saint Louis Community College (1997); Carole Baumgarten (1996); Billie Moore, California State – Fullerton (1995); Marcy Weston, Central Michigan University (1994); Patsy Neal (1993); Harley Redin, Wayland Baptist University (1992); Alberta Lee Cox (1991); Bertha Frank Teague (1990); Pat Summitt, University of Tennessee (1989); Hunter Low, Eastman Kodak Company (1988); Cathy Rush, Immaculata College (1987); Mildred Barnes, Central Missouri State University (1986); the late Carol Eckman, Lock Haven University (1985); and the late Margaret Wade, Delta State University (1984).