Donohoe, ex-tourney chief, dies following illness

Sue Donohoe, former director of both the women’s and men’s NCAA Division I basketball tournaments, has died Sunday after a brief illness not related to COVID-19.

Donohoe, a native of Pineville, Louisiana, was to be inducted this past summer into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, but the ceremony was postponed until 2021 by the pandemic. The WBHOF, located in Knoxville, Tennessee, released the news of Donohoe’s death.

“We are deeply saddened at the loss of our friend, mentor and vital member of the women’s basketball community,” WBHOF president Dana Hart said in a statement. “Sue’s love of basketball and her attention to detail, hard work and administrative excellence will forever be remembered.”

Donohoe began her career in 1981 as a graduate assistant at Louisiana Tech, which won the first women’s NCAA title in 1982. She also was an assistant coach at Stephen F. Austin and Arkansas before moving into athletic administration at Arkansas and then the Southland Conference.

She joined the NCAA in 1999 as director of the Division I NCAA women’s tournament, and in 2002-03 had that position with the Division I men’s tournament. Then in 2003, she became the NCAA’s vice president of women’s basketball, a role she held until 2011, when she became executive director of the Kay Yow Cancer Fund until retiring in 2015. She remained active with the WBHOF Board of Directors.

“I loved what I did, every day,” Donohoe told Shreveport Times writer Teddy Allen before being honored by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 2017. “Some days I loved it more than others — when you pick a tourney field and you have to tell people they didn’t get in, that’s not the best of days — but I still loved what I did.

“I tried to live by this throughout my career: what we do is important; how we do it is more important; why we do it is most important,” she said. “Always, why we did it was the most important thing.”