September 11, 2024
Gonzaga head coach Lisa Fortier announces cancer diagnosis
By Emily Caron
Fortier said she intends to coach the upcoming season
On Tuesday, Gonzaga women’s basketball announced head coach Lisa Fortier has been undergoing treatment for breast cancer. In a social media post, Fortier said she was battling stage 2 or 3 breast cancer that had spread to her lymph nodes.
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Despite her diagnosis, Fortier said she intends to coach the upcoming season. It will be her 11th leading the Bulldogs.
In a video shared by the program on X, formerly Twitter, Fortier said she received the news on Feb. 6 during the middle of the Zags’ 2023-24 season. The Bulldogs advanced all the way to the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 — where they fell to a top-seeded Texas team — in Fortier’s most successful season at the helm so far, finishing the campaign atop the West Coast Conference (WCC) at 16-0 and at 32-4 overall.
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“It was very unexpected for our team and for our family,” Fortier said in the video announcing her diagnosis. “But at that time we were right in the middle of a very epic season, and it takes a while to figure out what to do next when you hear something like that.”
Fortier continued: “We finished our season off really well, as everybody here knows, and then as soon as our season was over, we kind of went into full ‘go’ mode on how to take care of me.”
Fortier noted that she underwent a successful surgery in April and has been receiving treatment since. This summer, she took some time away from the team to focus on her health.
“I’ve spent a lot of time working from home, coming in to see the players whenever I could,” Fortier said. “I have a great staff of coaches who are really experienced and care deeply about our program. And so they took up all the slack when I needed to focus on my health at that time.”
The 43-year-old coach is 265-63 in her career at Gonzaga. She has been with the program since 2004, serving as director of basketball operations until 2006 and then as an assistant coach from 2007 to 2014, before she took the top spot.
In the video, Fortier said she was feeling good and was “very excited for the season to come.” Gonzaga is slated to open its upcoming campaign at home on Friday, Nov. 1 against the College of Idaho. The Bulldogs will begin WCC play on Dec. 19 at San Francisco.
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