Iowa Athletics Hall of Fame
Jolette Law (90BS)
Jolette Law came from South Carolina to Iowa and was immediately challenged.
Law had been recruited by Iowa women’s basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer and immediately found out what Stringer wanted out of her players.
“So many of my memories there, it was about how I grew as a person,” Law says. “They always say Iowa is ‘a place to grow,’ and I can say I grew up quickly. I was exposed to a lot. Coach Stringer was a coach who really challenged me. She had high academic standards, which really prepared me for what I was going to embark on in life. Those long nights, staying up, studying, being prepared. At Iowa, you had to be on top of your game.”
The challenges came on the court as well.
“I think my freshman year I played a total of 17 minutes,” Law says. “My sophomore year, (Stringer) turned the program over to me. She gave me the keys. She said, ‘OK, you’ve got the keys. You’ve learned. You’ve stayed patient. Now it’s your time to lead this team.’ I went from an ‘unknown’ to a ‘known’ in one year. All of the lessons she taught me made me what I am today.”
PHOTO: HAWKEYESPORTS.COM
Law was a Kodak District V All-American in 1990, along with being a first-team All-Big Ten selection 1989 and 1990. She was part of four Big Ten regular-season champions and four NCAA tournament teams, including two that went to the regional finals. She scored 1,137 career points.
“Coach Stringer, I will always be indebted to her,” Law says. “She saw something in me that I didn’t know I had within myself. She took a chance on me. I know in my first year, she constantly said I wasn’t ready to lead a team for her. But she said that I had to pay my dues, be patient, listen and learn, and that day will come.”
Law went on to be an assistant coach on Stringer’s staff at Rutgers from 1995-2007, including the last four seasons as associate head coach. Law was head coach at Illinois from 2007-12, an assistant at Tennessee from 2012-17, and an assistant at South Carolina from 2017 to the present.
It was Iowa coach Lisa Bluder who delivered the news to Law that she was going to be inducted into this year’s Athletics Hall of Fame class.
“The impact Coach Stringer made on the program, Lisa is doing a phenomenal job of keeping that going,” Law says. “This is a prestigious honor, just being recognized. Whew. I get emotional talking about it. It’s a blessing in disguise. An unbelievable feeling.”
—JOHN BOHNENKAMP