3.26 Vanessa Blair-Lewis: Bigger Deposits
“If you want a bigger house, you have to make a bigger deposit.” - Vanessa Blair-Lewis Before the start of the 2021 basketball season, the new head women’s basketball coach at George Mason, Vanessa Blair-Lewis, hung a banner that read: Future Atlantic 10 Champions. It symbolized the championships she promised they would win and the future banners she promised to hang. This was a bold prediction for a team coming off a 3-win season, but it sent a message: Anything is possible if you are willing to put in the work. She told the team then, “We’re not putting this on social media, we’re not telling everyone about this. What you do here every day without the bright lights, without the cameras, will show if one day we’re worthy of this. And we will be.” They made this promise a reality in the 2024-25 season, where they won their first-ever conference tournament championship, recorded a school-record 27 wins, and reached back-to-back 20-win seasons for the first time in program history. Their...