Auburn knows Nell Fortner as the coach who led the 2008-2009 women's basketball team to an SEC championship; the nation knows her as the coach who led the 2000 Olympic women's national team to a gold medal. Now, the San Antonio Sports Hall of Fame knows her as its newest member.
Although honored to be a part of the 2013 class, Fortner said individual glory was never something she sought out.
"I guess it's always nice to have people recognize things that you've done and congratulate you for it, but I've never been one to be interested in individual awards," Fortner said. "It's just not what being a coach of a team is about."
Despite her modesty, Fortner said she is grateful for the honor and the accompanying hometown recognition.
"It's humbling to be looked upon, that someone wants to put you in a hall of fame; I mean that's humbling, but it's never been one of my goals or anything like that," Fortner said. "San Antonio is right near the city I went to high school at, New Braunfels High School, New Braunfels, Texas, so to go home in the sense of that part of going home, it's just nice to be recognized."
Fortner came to the Plains in spring 2004, following a four-year stint as an ESPN TV analyst, and needed just five years to orchestrate one of the best seasons in Auburn women's basketball history.
For the first time in 20 years, the Tigers took home the 2009 SEC regular-season title.
The team's 30-4 record (12-2 SEC) landed it an invitation to the NCAA Tournament as a No. 2 seed.
Auburn advanced to the second round before falling to No. 7 Rutgers.
Fortner's efforts that season were recognized not just at Auburn, but throughout the nation, as she was named the national Coach of the Year by the "Basketball Times," as well as the SEC and WBCA Region III Coach of the Year.
"It was being a part of watching that program grow," Fortner said when asked what stands out to her most from her tenure at Auburn. "From my first year, we might have had 300 people in the stands, and our fifth year, when we won the SEC championship, we had 14,000 people. To watch that progression as it got bigger and bigger every year was really exciting. It was fun."
Fortner wasn't always a coach.
She was all-state at New Braunfels High School before receiving a dual scholarship in basketball and volleyball to the University of Texas in 1978.
She ranks among the top-scoring leaders in school history and helped lead the Longhorns' volleyball team to the AIAW National Championship her senior year.
Following graduation, Fortner began her coaching career at Killeen High School.
She made her collegiate debut as a graduate assistant at Stephen F. Austin State University in 1986.
Her next stop was Louisiana Tech before taking her first head-coaching job at Purdue University, where she led the Boilermakers to a Big Ten regular-season conference title.
But to Fortner, coaching was never just about winning trophies. First and foremost, it was about impacting players the way her coaches had impacted her.
"I had some great high school coaches and a great college coach," Fortner said. "They were very inspirational to me as mentors and teachers and coaches. I just remember always thinking I want to be like them and make a difference in kids' lives."
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