Joyce Sorrell (2013) - Hall of Fame - Troy University Athletics

Joyce Sorrell

Induction:
2013

Troy University currently sponsors nine women’s intercollegiate athletics teams, but less than 40 years ago that number was zero. The person that laid the foundation for the current day structure and initiated the change was Joyce Sorrell, the mother of women’s athletics at Troy University.

Originally hired as an instructor in the Department of Health and Physical Education in 1968, Sorrell recognized a need for women’s athletics at Troy State. After directing the university’s women’s intramurals program, she developed an extramural program that in 1976 began to take the shape we recognize today.

On Aug. 19, 1976, current Troy University Sports Hall of Fame member Dr. Ralph Adams made the announcement that Troy State’s Athletics Department would expand to include women’s intercollegiate athletics. Sorrell was named the school’s first ever Coordinator of Women’s Athletics as Troy State began to sponsor women’s basketball, women’s tennis and volleyball.

In the early years of the program, Sorrell was the head coach for all three, but she made her name in the coaching world on the hardwood, where she coached the Troy women’s basketball team for 20 years (1975-95).

Sorrell recorded 274 wins along the way, still the most in program history. Sorrell’s 1980-81 team won an Alabama AIAW State Championship and posted an 18-16 overall record on the season. Sorrell coached an All-American in Troy University Sports Hall of Fame member Denise Monroe from 1977 to 1981.

“She certainly helped us go to the next level as players,” Monroe said. “She was so passionate about every single thing she did. She was a great communicator and really cared about us as student-athletes. She was always looking ahead, because she was building the program for the future.”

Sorrell led the women’s basketball program through seven years (1975-82) as a member of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) before the NCAA began sponsoring championships in women’s athletics in 1982. She then helped the program transfer from NCAA Division II to Division I in 1993-94 before retiring from coaching in 1995.

Sorrell coached nine 1,000-point scorers and 17 all-conference selections while coaching the Trojans through four different conferences, plus two seasons as an NCAA Division II independent.

Sorrell was not only instrumental for the growth of women’s athletics at Troy, she was also a pioneer across the state of Alabama, helping found the Alabama Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AAIAW) which offered championships for women before the NCAA began to do so in 1982.

After retiring from coaching in 1995, Sorrell remained in her role as a full-time instructor in the Department of Health and Physical Education. She retired from the department in 2006 after 39 years of full-time teaching, in addition to all of her athletic achievements.

Born in Ripley, Tenn., Sorrell attended the University of Tennessee at Martin where she was a three-sport star that graduated in 1967. Sorrell furthered her education and earned a master’s degree at the University of Tennessee in 1968.

“When you walked around campus and talked to her students, it seemed she was so focused and was able to give her full effort wherever she was at the time, be it coaching or teaching,” Monroe said. “I don’t know how she did it, but when she stepped into Sartain Hall, you would’ve thought she spent all day thinking about that practice or that game, even though she had just taught a class.”

Sorrell, a 2007 inductee into the Wiregrass Sports Hall of Fame, currently resides in Troy.