Grace Daley
New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame
Basketball, 1997-2006
Tulane University/WNBA/Europe
Inducted: 2023
Lisa Stockton had been Tulane’s head women’s basketball coach for a little more than a year in the fall of 1995 when a guard from Ocala, Florida, decided to sign with the Green Wave.
It would change the immediate course of the program.
Over the next four seasons, Grace Daley would put up numbers unmatched to this day by a Tulane basketball player, male or female, lead her team to multiple conference championships and four straight NCAA Tournaments and become the highest draft pick in program history.
For her career achievements, Daley is one of four inductees in the Class of 2023 into the Allstate Sugar Bowl Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame.
As a shooting guard coming out of Lake Weir High School, Daley had narrowed her college choice to two.
“Tulane did their homework,” she said. “I’m a church girl. Tulane took me to the House of Blues for a gospel brunch. I absolutely fell in love with the city and the campus.”
As quickly as Daley was sold on Tulane, she made an impact on the floor.
Stockton “was going to make me into the best player I could possibly be,” Daley said. “The team always came first.”
And while the points would pile up, so would the wins. The Green Wave went 99-23 in Daley’s four seasons in a Tulane uniform.
What made her different?
“Most players can shoot or drive,” Stockton said in an interview during Daley’s junior season, “but she’s a scorer who can do both.
“She has so many aspects to her game. She’s a competitor. When the game gets close, she plays better. If you had two like her, you could probably win a national championship.”
As a freshman in 1996-97, Daley averaged 13.2 points per game as Tulane won the regular-season and tournament championships in Conference USA and earned a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament. She was named the league’s Freshman of the Year.
Her sophomore season, Daley averaged 20.1 points and shot better than 50 percent from the field. She would not only be an honorable mention selection on the Kodak All-American team for the first of three consecutive seasons, but she was named the conference’s Defensive Player of the Year after averaging 2.9 steals per game.
After being slowed by a stress fracture in her foot early in her junior season, the scoring average dropped slightly to 19.1 points per game, but Tulane again claimed regular-season and tournament titles in CUSA.
Daley saved the best for last as a senior, averaging 21.6 points per game and earning CUSA Player of the Year honors.
Along the way in that final season, Daley passed Stacey Gaudet as the career scoring leader in Tulane women’s basketball history, and then put the cherry on top by surpassing Jerald Honeycutt’s record in men’s basketball. She would finish her career in the olive and blue with 2,249 points.
“I didn’t even know that record existed,” Daley said, “and I never set out to get it.”
Daley left New Orleans with some great memories and friends.
“We won a number of conference championships and I got a lot of awards,” she said, “but it’s really the camaraderie that I had with my teammates. I was surrounded by so much talent and we actually liked each other and got along. I didn’t realize how unique that was until I left Tulane.”
Following her senior season, Daley would become one of the highest draft picks in any sport in Tulane athletic history, going fifth overall in the 2000 WNBA Draft to the Minnesota Lynx.
“She’s that prototype athlete the WNBA is looking for,” Stockton said on the eve of the draft.
Daley played four years in the WNBA and seven seasons overseas before returning to her hometown to teach and help others.
“My teammates may change and my coaches may change, but my mindset doesn’t change,” she said. “The work ethic was instilled at Tulane. It’s still with me now.”
Daley returned to campus in December 2006 when her No. 4 was retired – only the second Tulane women’s basketball player, along with Gaudet, to earn that honor.
Daley’s latest honor gives her the opportunity to help spread her faith-based message even further.
“It’s absolutely a huge honor,” Daley said of her selection. “It will give me a higher platform to help serve the real MVPs out there – the most vulnerable people.”
Story by Lenny Vangilder of the Greater New Orleans Sports Awards Committee.
