SLS 19RS-3372 ORIGINAL
2019 Regular Session
SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 263
BY SENATOR BARROW
COMMENDATIONS. To commend Southern University Women's Basketball team and
Head Coach Carlos Funchess on an outstanding season.
1 A RESOLUTION
2 To commend Southern University (SU) Women's Basketball team and Head Coach Carlos
3 Funchess on an outstanding season.
4 WHEREAS, during the previous thirteen seasons, Carlos Funchess served as
5 associate head coach under former Head Coach Sandy Pugh, until he was named her
6 successor during the summer of 2018, after which the Southern University Women's
7 Basketball program has not missed a step; and
8 WHEREAS, Carlos Funchess holds the distinction of being the first coach in the
9 program's history to win the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) Regular Season
10 outright, the SWAC Tournament Title, and the SWAC Coach of the Year award in his first
11 season; and
12 WHEREAS, his twenty wins joins Herman Hartman as first-year coaches to win
13 twenty or more games in their first season as head coach in the program's history; and
14 WHEREAS, Southern University clinched the SWAC Regular Season title with a
15 dominant 60-49 road win over Texas Southern in Houston to capture back-to-back
16 conference championships for the second time in the program's history as a member of the
17 SWAC, and the school's third regular season title in the last four years; and
18 WHEREAS, with a gutsy 45-41 win over Jackson State University in the SWAC
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SLS 19RS-3372 ORIGINAL
1 Tournament Championship on March 16, 2019, Coach Funchess led SU Women's Basketball
2 team to the program's fifth SWAC Tournament Title and fifth National Collegiate Athletic
3 Association (NCAA) tournament appearance; and
4 WHEREAS, Friday, March 22, 2019, marked the seventeen year anniversary of
5 Southern University's first NCAA Women's tournament appearance in 2002 in which
6 Southern won the SWAC Regular Season and Tournament Titles, earned the programs first
7 NCAA bid, and faced Colorado in the West Region as a 14-seed, the highest seed in SU
8 tournament history; and
9 WHEREAS, Southern University made its fifth NCAA Women's Tournament
10 appearance and the program's first trip since meeting top-seeded University of Connecticut
11 (UConn) in 2010, in Norfolk, Virginia; and
12 WHEREAS, 2018-2019 season marks the second time in SU Women's Basketball
13 history that the team captured SWAC Regular Season, SWAC Tournament Title, and the
14 league's Coach of the Year award (Sandy Pugh in 2002, Carlos Funchess in 2019); and
15 WHEREAS, after leading the women's basketball program to both the SWAC regular
16 season and tournament championships, first year Head Coach Carlos Funchess earned the
17 2019 SWAC Coach of the Year award and received the Women's Basketball Coaches
18 Association's (WBCA) top honor, winning the WBCA Division I Maggie Dixon Rookie
19 Coach of the Year award.
20 THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Senate of the Legislature of Louisiana
21 does hereby commend Southern University Women's Basketball team and Head Coach
22 Carlos Funchess on an outstanding season and does hereby extend enduring appreciation for
23 the tremendous pride they have brought to the Southern University System, SU, the Baton
24 Rouge community, and the state of Louisiana.
25 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution be transmitted to Head
26 Coach Carlos Funchess.
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SLS 19RS-3372 ORIGINAL
The original instrument and the following digest, which constitutes no part
of the legislative instrument, were prepared by Ann S. Brown.
DIGEST
SR 263 Original 2019 Regular Session Barrow
Commends SU Women's Basketball team and Head Coach Carlos Funchess on an
outstanding season.
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