There are some inductees with accomplishments that jump off the page at you. In her 26 seasons coaching UBC’s women’s basketball team as a perennial national power, Deb Huband is one of those.
A sampling?
Three CIS (now U Sports) Canadian national championships, including the first for UBC women’s basketball in thirty years. Additional silver and bronze medal finishes at nationals. Four Canada West titles. Three Pacific Division titles. Overall career win-loss record of 538-295 in all competitions (.646 winning percentage). The fourth-most victories ever among all Canadian women’s basketball coaches. New all-time record of 344 Canada West victories against just 171 losses, for a .667 winning percentage. Induction into ten different halls of fame to date as an athlete and builder. The longest tenure of any UBC women’s coach in any sport in the university’s history.
Add it all up and Deb must be considered one of Canada’s most successful university coaches in any sport ever.
Growing up in Ontario and Quebec, Deb was a multi-sport athlete who played whatever sport was in season. She chose to pursue basketball and became a star scorer for John Abbott College, Concordia, and Bishop’s University. With the latter, in 1979-80 she set a single-game CIAU scoring record with 50 points.
Two years after making the Canadian national team, Deb moved to BC to complete her Masters degree at UBC. She ultimately played point guard for Canada for 11 years, eight as team captain. In that time she helped Canada to bronze medal finishes at the 1979 and 1986 FIBA World Championships and captained Canada to a best-ever fourth-place finish at the 1984 Olympics.
After serving as a UBC assistant coach from 1988-91, Deb took on the head coach role in 1995. In 2004, she was named the winner of the Peter Ennis Award as CIS Coach of the Year.
Written and researched by Jason Beck, Curator of the BC Sports Hall of Fame.
To read more on the career of Deb Huband, please see the April 2023 Curator’s Corner article here: https://bcsportshall.com/curator-corner/deb-huband-master-class-in-coaching-2023-inductee-spotlight/