Coaching legend
Yvonne Kauffman entered the Ira R. Herr Athletic Hall of Fame as an individual in 2012, after having gone in twice before with her 1982 and 1989 National Championship-winning women's basketball teams.
Kauffman won more than 1,130 contests during her more than four-decade long stay at the College, divided amongst women's basketball, field hockey and women's tennis.
The '82 women's basketball team won the first ever NCAA DIII national title. Kauffman took the reins of the field hockey program in 1967, coaching the Jays through the 2000 season. In 1970 she began coaching both the women's basketball and tennis teams.
Kauffman, a native of nearby Manheim, Pennsylvania, and a Manheim Central High School graduate, compiled 346 victories with the hockey team, three Middle Atlantic Conference Championships (1975, 1978 and 1987), seven NCAA Tournament appearances and trips to the AIAW Final Four (1980) and NCAA Division III Final Four (1981).
In her 14 years as the tennis coach the Blue Jays turned in four unbeaten seasons and were MAC Runners-Up in 1983. Beckie Donecker '82 won an NCAA Division III Singles National Championship under the tutelage of Kauffman during her senior year and teamed with Jen Haifley '81 to win an AIAW Doubles title in 1981.
The longest tenured coach in E-town history, Kauffman ranks 12th amongst NCAA women's basketball coaches in wins with 689, regardless of division. She recently completed her 42nd and final year on the sidelines with the women's basketball team.
The Blue and Gray captured its first MAC Championship in women's basketball in 1976, Kauffman's sixth season on the job. E-town would repeat the feat five more times (1981, 1986, 1988, 1989 and 1998), while also taking the Commonwealth Conference Championship in 2001.
Kauffman led Elizabethtown to national runner-up finishes in 1983 and 1984, before her 1988-89 Blue Jays capped a decade of unparalleled success for the program with its second NCAA Division III Championship in 1989. From 1979-89, Elizabethtown recorded an astounding 237-39 record, which included nine seasons of 20 wins or more, two national titles, five MAC Championships and seven NCAA Tournament appearances.
Kauffman is also a member of her Bridgewater (Va.) College's athletic hall of fame. She was inducted by her alma mater in 1997.
