Zags women's hoop coach has Placer High roots

From Placer High's Earl Crabbe Gym in Auburn to Gonzaga's McCarthey Athletic Center in Spokane, Washington, Lisa Mispley-Fortier (Placer Class of 1999) has left her mark on the basketball court. For her accomplishments at both locations and her athletic journey along the way, she will be inducted into the Placer Athletic Hall of Fame. The ceremony, originally set for April 25, has been postponed and is rescheduled for Oct. 24. Mispley-Fortier's basketball career didn't have an especially audacious beginning. In high school, she was cut from the Bear River team. As a senior, she transferred to Placer where her father and grandparents had graduated. "I loved my time at Placer," Mispley-Fortier said. "Bear River was a new school, but Placer had such a great history and tradition. I loved the rallies and school spirit." She loved the boys basketball team as well. One player in particular, Craig Fortier. They are now married with three young children, and Craig serves as her assistant coach at Gonzaga. For the Lady Hillmen, she came under the tutelage of coach Tony Camillucci and the team made the playoffs. A tough basketball player, she holds the record for most charges taken. She also ran the hurdles during track season for Placer. Following graduation, she attended Butte College and earned All-Conference honors. Her final two years were spent at California State University, Monterey Bay, where she earned All-California Pacific Conference Honorable Mention as junior and NAIA Academic All-American in 2003. Mispley-Fortier graduated Magna Cum Laude from CSUMB with a degree in human communications in 2004. She enrolled at Gonzaga in 2004, and earned her master's in sport and athletic administration two years later. As a graduate student there, she spent two years as coordinator of basketball operations. She left for one year to serve as an assistant coach at the University of Northern Colorado before returning to Gonzaga in 2007. Her coaching career at Gonzaga began as a grad assistant, eventually moving up to assistant for seven years. She was named head coach in 2014. Mispley-Fortier has experienced phenomenal success in her career at the Spokane campus, accomplishing a series of firsts in her initial five seasons at the helm. She became the fastest coach to 50 wins and became the only coach in Gonzaga history to have four 20-win seasons in their first five seasons. In her rookie coaching season Mispley-Fortier guided Gonzaga to a 26-8 record and into the NCAA Sweet 16 as an 11-seed and posted a pair of upsets along the way. For her effort, she was named Women's Basketball Coaches Association Rookie Coach of the Year. The following season, her team posted a 26-7 record and advanced to the WNIT Tournament. In her third season, working with a young team featuring only one senior starter, three-time West Coast Conference First-Teamer and future WNBA draft pick Jill Barta, Gonzaga went 26-7 and advanced to the NCAA tournament. Last year, Gonzaga posted a regular season record with a 27-3 season and ranked 12th in the nation. The team advanced to the NCAA tournament for the fourth time under Mispley-Fortier, securing the No. 5 seed. They advanced to the second round. She was named WCC Coach of the Year for the fourth time in five seasons. This year, the Placer grad added even more accolades to her coaching resume, going undefeated in the WCC and posting a record-breaking 28-3 season. Top-tier players included conference MVP guard Jill Townsend and All-Conference forward Jenn Wirth. Although ranked No. 11 in the nation, the Lady Bulldogs' season came to a close when the NCAA canceled the 2020 tournament because of the coronavirus outbreak. Her coaching was influenced by Camillucci, from whom she learned the importance of the relationship that needs to be developed between coaches and players. "Tony was a gracious coach, a relational coach," she said. She uses that experience to create a family-oriented environment with her high-level athletes. She lives and coaches by a personal motto that helps her relate to her players. "They don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care," Mispley-Fortier said. She admits that coaching a major college basketball team with national recognition is stressful. Besides the coaching, there's the recruiting, which involves a lot of travel. In a one-week break between the end of the regular season and the start of the WCC tournament last month, Mispley-Fortier visited Calgary, Detroit and Los Angeled for recruiting trips. "There's a lot of pressure to do my best at all times," she said. "Lots of the pressure, I put on myself." All this while balancing a family that consists of her husband Craig, sons Marcus, 10, and Calvin, 8, and daughter Quincy, 6. Craig, who played varsity boys basketball at Placer the same time his wife did, joined the Gonzaga staff in 2014 as an assistant coach after previously serving as the associate head men's basketball coach at Eastern Washington University.