It was a quick conversation but in just a few minutes Nell Fortner hit all the high points of recent Canadian women’s basketball.
She coached the United States at the turn of the millennium and the first name she dropped in a telephone conversation was Bev Smith, the legendary Canadian player and coach, and that her teams “played hard, they were physical … it was going to be a really tough ball game when you played them.â€
Fortner worked as a broadcaster during an iconic college coaching hiatus as another era developed. “I told Bridget (Carleton), ‘I remember watching you as a sophomore at Iowa State,’ I called their game against Oklahoma State. I was at that point like, ‘Oh my, gosh, this kid is really, really good.’ †A few minutes later, a few more names. “Kia Nurse, Aaliyah Edwards, both of them at UConn … Kayla Alexander, I remember her at Syracuse.â€
Fortner coached last winter at Georgia Tech and saw Duke’s Toby Fournier up close, and Yvonne Ejim at Gonzaga. She tried to recruit Syla Swords as New York high schooler.
Fortner’s passport says the U.S. but her knowledge of women’s basketball on the continent pays no attention to borders. And as the newest head coach of Canada Basketball’s senior women’s team, the 66-year-old coaching icon is anxious to help the country over a final international hurdle.
Expectations for Canada’s women’s basketball team were high heading into 2024.
“Canada’s had great potential and I hope I can get it to the next level on the international level,†she said in an interview with The Star on Monday afternoon.
Fortner was hired to fill a vacancy created when Victor Lapeña left the program last winter. Her staff is still be finalized but sources said long-time national stalwart Carly Clarke is expected to be on the bench.
Fortner brings an impeccable resumé to a job that starts with the AmeriCup tournament in June in Chile, the beginning of the 2026 World Cup qualification process and a trip, hopefully, to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
The Mississippi native coached the American team to gold medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and 1998 World Cup, amassing a 101-14 record. She was an NCAA coach of the year three times in three major conferences. She was the first head coach of the WNBA’s Indiana Fever. And she has worked for years as a part-time broadcaster with ESPN.
Fortner left Georgia Tech earlier this year, tired of the NIL-portal transfer world of college basketball, and she jumped at the chance to coach Canada when women’s program general manager Steve Baur reached out a couple of months ago.
“I was retiring from college coaching but I wasn’t just retiring,†she said. “I didn’t know what the possibilities were out there … but I knew I didn’t want to be a college coach any more.
“The amount of talent that’s coming out of Canada now, it’s really impressive … There’s so much potential there and it’s exciting, I like a challenge.â€
The job had been vacant since Brooklyn Nets coach Jordi Fernandez stepped down after the 2024
Fortner has been presented with a group of 25 women who Canada Basketball says is committed through the Los Angeles Games. It includes Carleton, Nurse, Alexander, Edwards and Ejim. There are Olympians like Sami Hill, Shaw Colley and Swords, as well.
The first challenge is the 10-team AmeriCup. The top six teams earn automatic spots in the final World Cup qualification tournaments in March 2026, and the AmeriCup gold medallist gets a guaranteed spot at the 2026 World Cup in Germany.
Canada hasn’t won a World Cup medal since a bronze in 1986 and has never won an Olympic medal, losing in the quarterfinals in London in 2012 and Rio in 2016.
“That’s a big step, it’s a big hurdle,†Fortner said. “We’ve got to figure that out and attack that, and that’s what are goals are.â€
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