Gonzaga women's basketball 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 PHS Athletic Hall of Fame on April 30. Her basketball career didn't have an especially audacious beginning. In high school, Mispley-Fortier 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. Bear River was a new school, but Placer had such a great history and tradition," she said. "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 Fortier 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 and ran track for Placer. Following graduation, Mispley-Fortier attended Butte College and earned all-conference honors. Her final two years were spent at Cal State Monterey Bay, where she earned honorable mention all-Cal-Pac Conference as junior and NAIA Academic All-American in 2003. Mispley-Fortier graduated magna cum laude from Cal State Monterey Bay with a degree in human communications in 2004. She enrolled at Gonzaga in 2004 and earned her masters 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 at the Spokane campus. In her nine years of coaching the Zags, she has compiled a 236-52 record, winning 82 percent of her games. She has had 20-win seasons every year, qualified for eight NCAA tournaments and one WNIT tourney. She has coached WNBA draft pick Jill Barta, a three-time West Coast Conference first-teamer, and top-tier players Jill Townsen, a conference MVP at guard, and all-conference forward Jenn Wierth. Perhaps Mispley-Fortier's best season came in 2020, when Gonzaga was ranked No. 11 in the nation with a 28-3 record, but the Lady Bulldogs' season came to a close when the NCAA cancelled the tournament because of the pandemic. This season, Gonzaga knocked off No. 1 seed BYU to win the WCC Tournament and advanced to the NCAA again as a No. 9 seed. Following a first-round win over Nebraska, Gonzaga's season ended with a loss to No. 1 seed Louisville, finishing the season with a 27-7 record. Mispley-Fortier's 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 admits coaching a major college basketball team with national recognition is stressful. Besides the coaching, there's the recruiting, which involves considerable travel. In a one-week break between the end of the regular season and the start of the WCC Tournament last year, Mispley-Fortier made recruiting trips to Calgary, Detroit and Los Angeles. "There's a lot of pressure to do my best at all times. Lots of the pressure, I put on myself," she said. All this while balancing a family that consists of husband Craig, sons Marcus (12) and Calvin (10) and daughter Quincy (8). Fortier, who played varsity boys basketball at Placer the same time his wife did, joined the Gonzaga staff in 2014 as assistant coach after previously serving as the associate head men's basketball coach at Eastern Washington University. The Athletic Hall of Fame ceremony will be held in the Placer High School Auditorium. A pre-ceremony reception will begin at 6 p.m., followed by the induction ceremony at 7. Tickets for the reception cost $25 until April 15 and $35 after, and are available online at placerathletichof.bpt.me. The 7 p.m. ceremony is free of charge to the public.