The Pam Borton Endowment for the Promotion of Girls and Women in Sport Leadership fund, established in 2014 and housed in the Tucker Center for Girls & Women in Sport, recently received a $10,000 gift in support of the Borton Fellowship. The purpose of the Fellowship is to promote leadership among girls and women within a sports context. Since its inception, three outstanding Kinesiology and Sport Management graduate students have received the Fellowship: Marnie Kinnaird, Caroline Heffernan, and Matea Wasend.

The Fellowship is named after former University of Minnesota head women’s basketball coach, Pam Borton, who was named to the position in 2002. Borton created a culture of excellence within the women’s program both on and off the court. Averaging 20 wins per season in her 12-year tenure at the U of M, Borton guided the Golden Gophers to a Final Four, three Sweet Sixteens, six NCAA Tournament appearances and three seasons of 25 or more wins. She is the winningest head coach in the program’s history. Under Borton’s guidance, female student-athletes achieved unparalleled academic success: Her teams earned an overall 3.0 grade-point average every year of her tenure. Borton’s Gophers also garnered a league-best 88 Academic All-Big Ten honorees over the span of her coaching career.