Retired Varsity Blues women’s basketball coach Michèle Bélanger amassed 854 wins over a 41-year career at the University of Toronto. This week she was inducted into the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame
Former University of Toronto Varsity Blues women's basketball coach Michèle Bélanger was inducted into the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame on July 10.
Having spent 41 seasons as the head coach of the Varsity Blues women's basketball program, Bélanger led Toronto to nine OUA championships and the program's only national title in 1986.
Born in Montreal and raised in Timmins, Ont., the long-time bench boss was named the OUA coach of the year eight times.
Throughout her tenure with the Varsity Blues, Bélanger surpassed 850 total victories, while also finishing 21 of her seasons with just four or less regular season losses.
On the international stage she coached for Canada at all levels of competition. She served as an assistant coach to Team Canada when they earned a program-best silver medal at the 2015 FISU Games in Gwangju, Korea. She also sat on the staff that placed eighth at the 2013 Games in Kazan, Russia and was the head coach of the 1997 student national team that won five of six games at the FISU Games in Sicily. Most recently, she led Canada to a 13th place finish at the 2019 FISU Summer Universiade in Naples, Italy.
In what wound up being her final game on the bench for U of T, Bélanger led the Varsity Blues to a 69-53 victory over the Nipissing Lakers on February 15, 2020.
Bélanger was inducted along with Stewart Granger (player), Steve Nash (player), Angela (Johnson) Straub (player), John Bitove (coach), Rick Fox (player) and Tony Simms (player) as both the classes of 2021 and 2022 were honoured.