KERRI BRINKOETER OF SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, after finishing her eighth season at Southwestern and fifth after returning from a short hiatus from the collegiate coaching ranks, Brinkoeter has guided the Pirates to an 11-3 conference mark (13-12 overall), a share of the SCAC regular season title and the top seed at this year's conference tournament. She has a career mark of 117-93 (.557) at SU and her 73 conference victories are the most by any active women's coach and the fourth-most all time. This year's squad is the first to earn the overall top seed in the SCAC tournament (the 2011-12 team was the West Division top seed) and the first to earn a share of the conference regular season title since the 1997-98 Pirates' squad.

The Coach-of-the-Year honor is the first for Brinkoeter and just the second for the Southwestern program as Ronda Seagraves was awarded the honor after guiding the aforementioned 1997-98 team to the SCAC title.

Brinkoeter received four votes from her peers in the COTY balloting, while Mel Dixon of Texas Lutheran earned two first-place votes. Temaine Wright of Schreiner University and Cameron Hill of Trinity both received one vote each.