Debby King Position: Head Coach Experience: Fourth year Alma Mater: Florida Atlantic '84

Since she came to Notre Dame in 2001, head coach Debby King has guided the Fighting Irish women's golf program to unprecedented levels. King has led the Irish to 11 team tournament victories in her tenure, including two BIG EAST Tournament titles in 2003 and 2004. Most importantly, she has also steered Notre Dame to the program's first two trips to the NCAA Tournament in 2004 and 2005 and has established the Irish on the national scene.

King was named head coach of the University of Notre Dame women's golf team on August 21, 2001, becoming the third head coach in the 16-year history of the program. The first full-time coach in the program's history, King wasted little time in elevating the Notre Dame program to the next level. Under her direction, the Irish have realized extraordinary success, including winning the first-ever BIG EAST Women's Golf Championship in 2003 and following that up with the 2004 conference title en route to the program's inaugural trip to the NCAA tournament.

Expectations were high heading into the 2004-05 campaign and King had her team ready for another impressive run, which included a school-record four tournament victories and four medalist finishes. The year ended with Notre Dame playing in the NCAA Central Regional for the second straight season and just the second time in program history. The Fighting Irish finished 18-shots better in the 2005 regional compared to the year before. This has King and her team focused on its next goal, which is to make the leap to the NCAA Finals.

"Last year was a very successful year. We made it to regionals and we were closer to advancing to finals than the year before, so that was progress," says the native of Slidell, La.

In four-and-a-half seasons under King, the Notre Dame team has experienced dramatic improvements. Prior to King's arrival, the Irish had a team-stroke average of 323.26 in 2000-01; Notre Dame concluded the fall of 2005 with an amazing school-record semester average of 301.71.

To say that King's teams have rewritten the Notre Dame record books would be an understatement. A Kingled squad owns all 10 of the top 54-hole tournament scores and nine of the top 10 low-team rounds in Fighting Irish history. There have also been numerous individual records established during King's tenure at Notre Dame, including the top nine career-stroke averages and top 10 season- stroke averages.

After four outstanding seasons, King's current squad is in the midst of its greatest statistical season in the program's history. The energetic coach is impressed by how fast her players have responded to higher goals and have continued to improve all facets of their games.

"After we struggled at our home tournament this fall, we had a pretty significant talk and the rest of the way was pretty awesome," says King. "For the most part this fall was fantastic. We had a stretch where seven of nine rounds were under 300 and that's more than we've ever done."

"We keep taking steps in the right direction. When I first arrived, I knew the goal here was to get into the national top-25. When I got the head coaching position here, I told (director of athletics) Kevin White I felt it would take five years to get to that point. The team was 107th when I first started and it's great to see where we are in the country now."

With this marking her fifth season at Notre Dame, King has already exceeded expectations for her initial five-year plan. The team debuted in the top-25 of the Golfstat.com rankings in October of 2004 at No. 18 after winning the Jeannine McHaney Invitational/Central Regional Preview.

"Winning the central (regional preview) is the biggest win we've had since I've been here," says King. Katie Brophy, a current senior co-captain and a member of King's first recruiting class at Notre Dame, took home medalist honors at the McHaney Invitational to improve her career win total to three, another Irish record established under King. The Fighting Irish have captured a total of seven medalist finishes throughout King's tenure. Current junior Noriko Nakazaki has two wins during her career to go along with a 76.00 scoring- average, which places her first in Irish history in that category.

King laid the groundwork for this unprecedented success in her first season with the Irish in 2001-02. As a team, the Irish had three top-four finishes and ended the season with a team average of 323.59, good for sixth-best in school history at that time.

In 2002-03, Notre Dame made impressive strides under King's guidance. With her first recruiting class, she brought in five talented freshmen, hailing from as far as Ireland. Two of those freshmen, Brophy and Sarah Bassett, finished the schedule with the top two stroke averages on the team and led the squad to a 316.29 team scoring average, the lowest team average (for an entire season) in the history of the program at that time. Notre Dame closed out the year by winning the first-ever BIG EAST Women's Golf Championship. The Irish had three freshmen in the scoring five at the conference championship and had four golfers finish in the top five to earn all-BIG EAST honors for '02-'03, including Brophy who took co-medalist honors.

The program extended its rise in 2003-04 by building off the prior accomplishments of King's first two squads. Freshman Noriko Nakazaki continued the trend of rookie success as she led the Fighting Irish in a recordsetting eight tournaments. Notre Dame captured three tournament victories in the fall of 2003, tying the school record for tournament victories in an entire season.

The Irish added to that total in the spring as they won their second straight BIG EAST title and saw three golfers (Nakazaki, Brophy, Karen Lotta) collect all-BIG EAST honors. A trip to the NCAA Central Regional capped off the greatest year in the history of the program to that point. King came to Notre Dame after six seasons as the head golf coach at the University of Memphis where her teams won two Conference USA titles (1997, 2001), produced 16 allconference players, one conference player-of-the-year and two conference rookies-of-theyear. During her six years at Memphis, King guided her teams to five consecutive trips to the NCAA Golf Regionals from 1997 through 2001. Her 2000-01 squad won the Conference USA tournament and finished 14th at the NCAA West Regional. Rookie of the Year, Meghan Francella, advanced to the NCAA finals but was forced to withdraw with an injury.

In announcing King as the new women's golf coach, Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White said, "We are very excited to be naming Debby King as the women's golf coach at Notre Dame. She brings with her outstanding qualifications as a coach and a teacher at Memphis. With Debby taking over as our full-time coach, plus the addition of scholarships and our facilities at the Warren Golf Course, we have now put our women's golf program in the position to compete at the national level."

King believes that Notre Dame has a great deal to offer prospective student-athletes both academically and athletically.

"I think the prestige of coming to Notre Dame is important. The tradition of both academics and athletics is what players and their parents are interested in," says King.

"We have a great new golf course and when we finish our state-of-the-art indoor golf facility (part of the overall athletic master plan) in the next year, that will complete the entire package. I'm very excited about what we have to offer here at Notre Dame," says King.

King took over at Memphis in the fall of 1995 and led the Tigers to the Memphis Women's Intercollegiate Invitational championship in her first tournament as head coach.

Her teams at Memphis went on to win six individual tournament titles. In 1997, King was named Conference USA's Coach of the Year as Memphis won its first conference title and advanced to the NCAA's for the first time under her guidance.

A former collegiate player at Florida Atlantic University, King moved to the professional ranks as an assistant golf pro at St. Andrew's Country Club in Boca Raton, Florida. In 1985 she attended the LPGA Qualifying School and for the next five years played on the Asian Tour, the Futures Golf Tour and worked as a teaching professional.

As a player, King won the 1991 Massachusetts Women's Open, the 1993 West Tennessee Assistants Championship, and in 1995, the Tour America Championship.

Before taking the head-coaching job at Memphis, King was a noted teaching professional at the Windyke Country Club in Memphis. In 1996, she was named the PGA West Tennessee Teacher of the Year and in 1997, the LPGA National Coach of the Year.

King is an LPGA Class A member, a PGA Class A member and is a member of the National Golf Coaches Association.