ATLANTA — Nell Fortner, who has led Georgia Tech women’s basketball to 106 victories in five-plus seasons, including an 18-4 start to the 2024-25 campaign, has signed a three-year contract extension that will keep her at the helm of the Yellow Jackets through the 2029-30 season.
“It is a great privilege to have one of the most distinguished and successful coaches in women’s basketball history leading our program at Georgia Tech,” Tech director of athletics J Batt said. “Coach Fortner is a first-class representative of the Institute, on and off the court, and she recruits, develops student-athletes and wins at a high level. We’re excited that she will continue to lead our women’s basketball program for the foreseeable future.”
In her sixth season at Tech, Fortner is 106-68 (.609) at the helm of the Yellow Jackets, including an 18-4 record this season, which is the best start in program history. The historic start includes five wins over top 50 teams in the NCAA NET rankings and has lifted the Jackets, who were unranked in the preseason, to No. 17 in this week’s AP Top 25 poll.
Under Fortner’s direction, Georgia Tech has put together some of the program’s all-time best recruiting classes, led by this season’s freshman class, which was ranked No. 12 nationally by ESPN. The class is highlighted by national Freshman of the Year candidate Dani Carnegie, who has been named the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Rookie of the Week five times and leads all ACC freshmen in scoring with 14.9 points per game.
In her first five seasons at Tech, Fortner led the Yellow Jackets to postseason berths three times in four opportunities (the Jackets were also in line for a postseason appearance in 2019-20 before the NCAA Tournament was canceled due to Covid-19). The Jackets advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16 for only the second time in program history in 2020-21 and finished that season ranked No. 22 nationally, which marked only the second time that Tech has ever been in the postseason rankings.
She was named ACC Coach of the Year in 2020-21, which gave her the honor in three different major conferences, as she was previously named Coach of the Year in the Big Ten (1996-97- Purdue) and the Southeastern Conference (2008-09 – Auburn).
Fortner is 268-185 (.592) in 15 seasons as a college head coach, which includes her lone season at Purdue (1996-97) and eight seasons at Auburn (2004-12).
She also served as head coach of the United States women’s national team for three years and led the squad to gold medals at the 1998 FIBA World Championships and 2000 Summer Olympics. With a 101-14 record at the helm of the U.S. national team, she is the winningest head coach in USA women’s basketball history. She was also head coach and general manager of the WNBA’s Indiana Fever from 2001-03.
