Beth Couture Basketball Camps

Head Coach Beth Couture

The Butler women's basketball team continues to follow the upward trend which has become commonplace since the arrival of head coach Beth Couture five seasons ago. Since taking the helm of the Bulldogs prior to the start of the 2002-03 season, Couture steadily resumed the program's winning ways before bringing the team to the brink of its first Horizon League Championship in over a decade.

When Couture first stepped onto the Butler campus, she knew she faced one of the toughest challenges of her coaching career. The Bulldog team that went 3-26 the season before she took the reins hardly resembled her squads at Presbyterian College, where she won nearly 70 percent of her games over the course of 13 seasons.

But after developing the roster she inherited and infusing it with several talented recruiting classes, Couture has the Bulldogs consistently ranked among the Horizon League's best.

After doubling their win total in Couture's first year at the helm, the Bulldogs continued to build on their success by winning at least 14 games in each of the next four years while earning 13 All-Horizon League honors during that span.

Butler finished the 2003-04 campaign with a 14-15 record, including a 9-7 league mark and appearance in the semi-finals of the league tournament. The Bulldogs came together when it counted most, posting victories in nine of the team's final 13 games to climb into the top half of the Horizon League standings for their first winning league record in five seasons. The team's success also ranked as the 14th greatest improvement in the NCAA that season.

A 14-14 overall record and 8-8 league slate followed in 2004-05 before the Bulldogs improved to 15-14 in 2005-06 for the team's first above-.500 overall mark since 1998-99.

Last year, the Bulldogs registered the most wins since the 1998-99 season, going 16-15 overall and 11-5 in league play to finish tied for second in the conference, the team's highest placing in nearly 10 years. The team followed up their regular season performance with a run to the Horizon League Championship game for the first time since 1998.

Butler's long-distance offense continued to thrive under Couture in 2006-07, breaking the school's single-season three-point record for the third-consecutive year and finishing second in the nation with 260 treys. Additionally, Jackie Closser and Ellen Hamilton, two members of Couture's first recruiting class at Butler, each notched their 1,000th career points during the 2006-07 season.

Couture began her collegiate head coaching career in 1989-90 at Presbyterian College. Thirteen successful seasons later, she had compiled an impressive 258-117 (.688) overall record, including eight 20-win seasons. In addition, she led the program to six trips to the NCAA Division II national tournament in her final nine years.

She led the team to three-straight South Atlantic Conference (SAC) regular season and SAC Tournament titles from 1998 to 2000. A four-time SAC "Coach of the Year" recipient, Couture mentored 18 all-conference selections and three conference "Players of the Year."

The 1999-2000 team went 28-2 and won the SAC regular season title with a 15-1 record. The Blue Hose also won the SAC Tournament title and hosted the NCAA Division II South Atlantic Regional Tournament. PC was ranked as high as fourth in the nation during that season.

The only coach in the conference's history to be named "Coach of the Year" in two different women's sports, Couture guided the Blue Hose volleyball team to three national tournaments, including the school's first-ever NCAA postseason appearance in 1993. She served as the team's head coach from 1987-93, amassing an overall record of 233-50, winning SAC Volleyball "Coach of the Year" awards on three occasions. Couture also served as an assistant director of athletics from 1993-2002.

Couture spent two seasons as an assistant at Presbyterian from 1987-89, arriving after three years at the helm of Dixie High School in Due West, S.C., where she posted a 49-28 record.

Couture's commitment to academics has also been at the forefront of her career, as 25 of her student-athletes were named to the SAC Academic Honor Roll throughout her tenure at Presbyterian.

The trend has continued at Butler as 11 different players have earned Horizon League Academic Honors during her tenure.

A native of Greenville, S.C., Couture is a 1984 graduate of Erskine College where she was a four-time MVP selection in basketball for the Flying Fleet. A Kodak All-American honoree as a senior, Couture was inducted into the Erskine College Hall of Fame in December of 1989.

She earned a bachelor's of science degree in physical education from Erskine and went on to complete a master's degree in the same field at Furman University in 1987.