Jenepher Banker is calling it quits.
The Daemen University women’s basketball coach announced her retirement Friday after nine years at the school. Banker was a four-time East Coast Conference coach of the year, posting a 165-76 record and a school-record .685 winning percentage.
The Wildcats won six ECC regular-season championships, five ECC tournament titles and two East region championships. Banker’s teams appeared in six consecutive NCAA Division II tournaments, with three trips to the Sweet 16 and a pair of Elite Eight berths.
“After a great deal of thought and consideration, I have made the difficult decision to retire as the head women’s basketball coach at Daemen,” Banker said in a press release. “This was not an easy decision, but one I believe is the right thing for me and my loved ones at this time.”
Before Daemen, Banker had a dominant run as the Grand Island girls basketball coach from 1998-2013. Banker’s teams won seven Section VI championships, made four Far West Regional appearances and a trip to states in 2011.
The Vikings produced 10 future college players and five 1,000-point scorers with Banker as the coach. Banker’s most notable player was her daughter, Kallie, who was a three-time first-team all-state selection who led Grand Island to three consecutive Section VI championships while scoring a school-record 1,700 points.
Kallie went on to play collegiately for Rhode Island and Vermont. She has spent the last seven seasons as her mother’s top assistant coach at Daemen.
Jenepher was an assistant coach at Iowa State from 1986-1988 and Canisius from 1993-1995, with a stint as the head coach of Penn State-Behrend in between. She led Behrend to its first national ranking in any sport and was inducted into the school’s hall of fame in 1994.
Banker surpassed 1,000 career points as a player at Springfield College. Her husband, Brett, is currently the athletic director at Grand Island.
Daemen has not announced a successor.