Dartmouth trustee Gail Koziara Boudreaux ’82 and her family have given $2 million to the College to endow the women’s basketball head coach position.
Gail Koziara Boudreaux ’82 reacts from the sidelines during her playing days on the court. She helped guide the Big Green women’s basketball team to its first Ivy League Championship in 1980.Boudreaux, the all-time leading scorer and rebounder in Dartmouth women’s basketball history and a three-time Ivy League Player of the Year, describes the gift as an expression of the importance of women’s basketball and athletics in general.
“We’re really pleased to be able to do this as a family. Basketball meant a lot to me while I was at Dartmouth. My husband and I dated while we were in college. He didn’t go to Dartmouth but he went to every game,” says Boudreaux. “Our son is playing for Dartmouth now—he’s a freshman—and our older son graduated earlier this year. Athletics have always been an important part of our family.
“I want this gift to send a strong message that women’s basketball is important to the College and is important to the alumni, and that we’re committed to providing the resources required to win. I hope the team gets energized by this gift.”
Dartmouth established a $20 million goal to endow more than a dozen Big Green coaching positions, elevating the school’s competitiveness in attracting the finest coaches and student-athletes. With the creation of the Boudreaux endowment, the College is $500,000 from its original target.
President Phil Hanlon ’77 praises Boudreaux for her decades of devotion to the College and for her commitment to athletics as a means to develop leadership skills.
“Gail represents so much of what we value at Dartmouth,” says President Hanlon. “She achieved academic distinction, was an outstanding athlete, and gave her time freely to help others, volunteering for causes on campus and off. Gail’s service to Dartmouth as an alumna is extraordinary, and this gift to strengthen the women’s basketball team will have a deep, lasting impact. I want to thank Gail and her family for generously supporting our athletics program, which is an essential element of life at Dartmouth.”
Gail Koziara Boudreaux ’82The Gail Koziara Boudreaux ’82 and Family Endowed Fund for the Head Coach of Women’s Basketball is an endowment established by a gift from Boudreaux, her husband, Terence Boudreaux, and their sons, Christopher Boudreaux ’15 and Evan Boudreaux ’19.
“We all love Dartmouth and felt this would be a wonderful way to support something that’s important to us,” Boudreaux says. “By playing sports I learned a great deal that helped me to be successful in business—how to be part of a team, how to work hard, how to overcome adversity.”
Athletics Director Harry Sheehy says endowed coaching positions are critical because they help the College recruit and retain outstanding coaches and also provide funding for equipment, travel, recruiting, and other team expenses—which in turn strengthens Dartmouth’s efforts to attract sought-after student-athletes.
“We are so thankful to Gail, Terry, and the family for their confidence in Dartmouth and Dartmouth athletics,” says Sheehy. “It’s particularly exciting to have this gift come from the family of one of the best athletes in our history.”
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Boudreaux is chief executive officer of GKB Global Health, LLC, a health care strategy and business advisory firm she founded this year. Prior to establishing GKB Global Health, she was CEO of UnitedHealthcare, where she was responsible for the largest business division of UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s biggest benefits provider, serving 45 million individuals and with revenue of $120 billion. Before joining UnitedHealthcare, Boudreaux served as executive vice president, external operations, for Health Care Service Corporation and held several regional and national leadership positions at Aetna. Fortune honored her from 2008 to 2014 as one of its 50 Most Powerful Women in American Business.
Boudreaux graduated with honors from Dartmouth and earned an MBA with distinction in finance and health care administration from Columbia Business School. On the basketball court, she was a four-time first-team All-Ivy League selection and three-time Ivy League Player of the Year, averaging 21.9 points and 18.4 rebounds per game. She holds the Big Green women’s basketball records for most points and most rebounds in a single game, in one season, and in an entire collegiate career. As a member of Dartmouth’s track and field team, she won four consecutive Ivy League shot put titles and was an All-American in her senior year.
In 1999, Boudreaux was named to the Ivy League’s 25-year anniversary basketball team and Dartmouth’s 25-year anniversary teams in both basketball and track and field. She is a member of the New England Basketball Hall of Fame and was one of six individuals nationally to receive the NCAA’s Silver Anniversary Award for outstanding professionalism and athletic achievement.
The current effort to endow Dartmouth coaching positions has yielded 10 new coaching endowments since 2013, for a total of 14. In addition to the Boudreaux endowment, the other new coaching endowments are:
- The Marjorie and Russell Boss 1961 Family Head Coach of Women’s Tennis
- The Bobby Clark Head Coach of Men’s Soccer (endowed with a gift from Kate and Gregg Lemkau ’91)
- The Digger Donahue 1973 Head Coach of Men’s and Women’s Squash
- The Betsy and Mark Gates 1959 Head Coach of Men’s Heavyweight Crew
- The Anny Jenny Head Coach of Women’s Alpine Skiing (made possible by Anny’s grandson Christopher Jenny ’77, his wife, Andi, and their children Alex ’10, Chris ’12, Lauren ’14, and Lizzie ’19)
- The Koenig Family Class of 1980 Head Coach of Men’s Hockey
- The Bill Johnson Head Coach of Men’s Golf (endowed with a gift from John Lundgren ’73)
- The Carolyn A. Pelzel 1954a Head Coach of Women’s Golf (endowed with a gift from Kathryn and Richard Kimball ’78)
- An anonymous donor provided an endowment for the head coach of women’s rowing
- An anonymous donor provided an endowment for the head coach of the men’s Nordic ski team
More than 1,000 students—one-quarter of Dartmouth’s undergraduate population—participate in the College’s 35 varsity sports. More than 75 percent of all Dartmouth students are involved in a sport or fitness activity.
