Olympian won basketball golds as a player and a coach
through the trials of prom and dates and no dates, and stares and jokes,’’ Donovan told USA Today in
2008.
‘‘It helped me through it. There are difficult days . . . and then there are days when they put a gold medal around your neck.’’
She weighed only 75 kilograms when she reached her full height as a high school student in Paramus, New Jersey. She gained confidence through basketball, and more than
200 colleges vied to recruit her. She chose Old Dominion in Norfolk, Virginia.
Anne Theresa Donovan was born in Ridgewood, New Jersey, the youngest of eight children. Her father died when she was 5, and her mother, who later remarried, worked as a secretary.
At Paramus Catholic High School, opposing players were so overmatched that Donovan asked her coach to stop using a full-court press, saying, ‘‘You’re not the one looking into that poor girl’s eyes.’’
After graduating from Old Dominion in 1983, she was a member of the US national team and played professionally in Japan and Italy. She began coaching in
1989, was the head coach of five WNBA teams and one in the old American Basketball League. But she never matched the success she found with Seattle in 2004 or with her gold medal-winning 2008 Olympic squad.
She died as a result of a heart ailment. Survivors include four sisters and two brothers. –