The John R. Wooden Award will celebrate it’s 50th anniversary this season. Leading up to the award ceremony on April 10, 2026, The Sporting Tribune in partnership with the Wooden Award and the Los Angeles Athletic Club will highlight past winners of the Wooden Award and the Legends of Coaching Award.
Before Alana Beard was a WNBA champion, All-Star and Defensive Player of the Year, she became the inaugural winner of the John R. Wooden Women’s National Player of the Year award with her stellar senior season at Duke in 2003-04.
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Beard averaged 19.7 points, 5.4 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game for the Blue Devils her senior season, leading the program to its third of five consecutive Elite 8 appearances from 2002-2006. Beard was actually more productive during Duke’s run to the Final Four during her junior season in 2002-03, averaging career-highs with 22 points and 6.9 rebounds per game, but UConn’s Diana Taurasi took home the existing (AP and Naismith) POY honors that season.
Duke won the ACC regular season and tournament championships in all four seasons of Beard’s collegiate career and she led the team in scoring each season she was with the program. Beard remains the school’s all-time leading scorer over 20 years after she played her last game for the school and was also the ACC’s all-time career leading scorer for 20 years until Virginia Tech’s Liz Kitley surpassed her mark in 2024.
When Beard departed from Duke following her senior season, the program honored her by making her the first women’s basketball player to have her jersey retired and in the rafters of Cameron Indoor Stadium. To this day, the Beard era and the immediate aftermath remain the standard for Duke women’s hoops.
Beard was drafted with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2004 WNBA Draft and was among the league’s best defenders her entire 15-year career. Beard made her first of nine All-Defensive team appearances in 2005, five of which were first-team selections. She won the 2016 WNBA Finals with the Los Angeles Sparks and won the 2017 Defensive Player of the Year award in the twilight of her career, cementing her spot in the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.
