Meg Sanders

Former Arizona State women’s basketball associate head coach Meg Sanders returned to the program as special assistant to the head coach, ASU head coach Charli Turner Thorne announced May 11, 2018.
 
“I am so happy and excited that Meg will be rejoining our staff,” Turner Thorne said. “She already has great relationships with the players and staff in our program. I think when I created the position (in 2017) I had Meg in mind. It’s for someone who’s got a great offensive mind, can help us game plan, can look at the individual development of our players and can look at our team offense and help us continue to evaluate and evolve it.”
 
“I am honored to return to ASU in a new and exciting role,” Sanders said. “What an incredible opportunity to work in an environment where positive culture, passion, respect, and excellence are demonstrated daily. I look forward to contributing and serving in ways that support Charli, the staff, student-athletes, and Sun Devil Athletics in achieving continued success. It’s great to be back.”
 
After spending 14 seasons (2004-17) on Turner Thorne’s staff, Sanders stepped away to spend more time with family. Sanders was one of the principal contributors to the most successful era in program history in her prior stint with the program. During her time on the Sun Devil sidelines, Sanders helped the Sun Devils qualify for the NCAA Tournament 10 times, advance to the Elite Eight twice and capture the program's second regular season Pac-12 championship.
 
“I approached Meg about taking on this role last year after (ASU vice president for university athletics) Ray Anderson allowed us to create the position,” Turner Thorne said. “It just wasn’t the right time for Meg as she truly needed to step away and have time for her family and herself after coaching nonstop more than 25 years.”
 
Prior to coming to ASU, Sanders was the head coach at Northern Arizona where she accumulated a 107-92 record and led the Lumberjacks to what at the time were three of the four best seasons in the program's history (22-6 in 1998, 17-11 in 1996-97 and 17-11 in 2001-02). In 1997-98, she became the first coach to lead NAU to a 20-win season, the first to win a conference title, the first to be named Big Sky Conference Coach of the Year and the first to defeat the University of Montana. The 22 wins in 1998 remains the single-season program record (tied with the 2005-06 team). No NAU team has yet to surpass or tie the 15 conference wins claimed by Sanders’ 1997-98 team.
 
Sanders was on Turner Thorne’s staff at NAU for three seasons (1994-96) before being promoted to the top spot after Turner Thorne departed to be the head coach at ASU.
 
Sanders began her basketball coaching career as an assistant at Fresno State (1989-1993). During her first year at Fresno State, the 1989-90 Bulldogs reached the National Women's Invitation Tournament.
 
Sanders played collegiately at Cal State Fullerton, earning a bachelor's degree in physical education in 1985. She earned her master's degree in physical education administration from Fresno State in 1991.
 
While in college Sanders became an accomplished handball player and was invited to play on the U.S. National Handball Team. She moved to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., to train and eventually represented the United States at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. She enjoyed her first national coaching experience as handball team coach for the West squad at the 1991 U.S. Olympic Festival.
 
In September 2009, Sanders, who grew up with two deaf parents, guided the USA women's basketball team to a silver medal in the Deaflympics held in Taipei, Taiwan.
 
The friendship and partnership between Sanders and Turner Thorne had begun on the court when Sanders was playing at Cal State Fullerton and Turner Thorne was playing at Stanford in the days of the Western Collegiate Athletic Association (the precursor of the Pac-10 Conference). The pair worked basketball camps together, and a few years later in 1993 when Turner Thorne was named head coach at NAU, Sanders was asked by Turner Thorne to join her staff.
 
At NAU, Turner Thorne and Sanders inherited a program that had turned in a 10-70 record the previous three years, including a 2-24 record the season before, and had lost its last 39 Big Sky games. In their three seasons together, Turner Thorne, Sanders and the rest of the staff turned around the Lumberjack program and produced the team's first winning seasons in nine years and the first back-to-back winning seasons in the program's history.
 
Sanders attended Poly High School in Riverside, Calif., where she was a teammate of eventual Hall of Famer Cheryl Miller. She played at Cal State Fullerton for current Yale Head Coach Chris Gobrecht, earning a bachelor's degree in physical education in 1985.
 
Sanders and her husband, Mark, have two children, a son, Ryan, 22, and a daughter, Naomi, 17.