Blair is one of only three all-time NCAA Division I women’s basketball coaches to lead two different teams to the NCAA Women’s Final Four (Texas A&M and Arkansas), and is one of 12 coaches to lead three different teams to the NCAA Tournament (Texas A&M, Arkansas, Stephen F. Austin). 

Over the course of his 42-year collegiate coaching career, which includes stops at Stephen F. Austin (1985-93) and Arkansas (1993-03), Blair has led his teams to 35 winning seasons, 30 20-win seasons, 26 NCAA Tournament appearances and 41 NCAA postseason victories. Blair has won a championship at every level of his coaching career including three state championships at Dallas South Oak Cliff High School, two national championships as an assistant coach at Louisiana Tech, a WNIT Championship at Arkansas and a national championship at Texas A&M.

Naimsith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame member, Gary Blair, led Texas A&M to the 2011 NCAA Championship and transformed the women’s basketball program into a national power over the course of his 19 years leading the program (2003-2022).

Blair, a three-time national finalist for the Naismith Coach of the Year Award, guided Texas A&M to 16 NCAA Tournament appearances, five conference championships and won an Aggie basketball record 444 games. He was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame on Aug. 12, 2023, as the 18th NCAA DI women’s basketball head coach to enter the hall.

On Feb. 24, 2022, the court at Reed Arena was named Gary Blair Court before the Aggie legend’s final home game at A&M. Blair was the fourth women’s basketball coaches to have a basketball court named in their honor. He ended his career with the 12th-most wins in NCAA women’s basketball history (852).

Blair led the Aggies to their first national title in their first-ever trip to the NCAA Women’s Final Four and closed out the 2010-11 season with a 33-5 record, the most victories in program history. The Aggies were voted as the No. 1 team in the coaches’ poll following the season, the first time Texas A&M stood atop either poll in women’s basketball.

With Blair at the helm, the Aggies made eight appearances in the Sweet Sixteen and reached the Elite Eight in 2008, 2011 and 2014. In 2020-21, the Aggies went 25-3, winning their first ever SEC regular season title, and reached the Sweet 16 for the third-consecutive NCAA Tournament.

A 1963 graduate of Dallas Bryan Adams High School, Blair was an all-city baseball player. After a tour in the U.S. Marine Corps, he earned his bachelor’s degree in health and physical education with a minor in journalism from Texas Tech in 1972. He completed his master’s degree in education in 1974 and also played a season of baseball for the Red Raiders.

Blair has two children, Paige and Matt, and four grandchildren, Logan, Lola, Landry and Reagan. Paige owns a children’s boutique in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and is married to Beau Thompson, head boys basketball coach at Farmington High School in Farmington, Ark. Matt is married to the former Alli Nielsen, and works in logistics in Fayetteville, Arkansas. In 2020, Blair married his wife, the former Kyla Gay.