Two Olympic Gold Medalists Join Beilein in WVU’s Hall

Kadeisha Buchanan and Ashley Lawrence, Olympic gold medalists from the same West Virginia soccer class, enter the WVU Sports Hall of Fame on Oct. 10 with five other honorees. Athletics director Wren Baker named the group on Aug. 7 and led with former men’s basketball coach John Beilein.

The hall’s waiting period is why those soccer names are on this plaque at all. Buchanan, Lawrence and women’s basketball scorer Bria Holmes last played in 2016, and 2026 is the first year they could be chosen.

Introducing the WVU Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2026‼️

🔹 John Beilein, @WVUhoops
🔹 Kadeisha Buchanan, @wvuwomenssoccer
🔹 Dennis Fowlkes, @WVUfootball
🔹 Bria Holmes, @WVUWBB
🔹 Alex Kasich, @WVUXCTF
🔹 Ashley Lawrence, @wvuwomenssoccer
🔹 Craig Turnbull, @WVUWrestling pic.twitter.com/E7ugYDyF3J

— WVU Sports (@WVUSports) August 7, 2026

The 10-Year Wait Just Opened for the 2016 Class

West Virginia’s hall, instituted in 1991, holds former athletes, coaches and administrators out until 10 years following their association with WVU. Baker’s seven-member Class of 2026 is the 36th group and lifts the roster to 250.

That rule is a calendar, not a compliment. Beilein left after the 2007 NIT title and has been eligible since 2017. Wrestling coach Craig Turnbull’s last season was 2014, so 2024 was his first window. Linebacker Dennis Fowlkes finished in 1982. Distance runner Alex Kasich finished in 1976.

The new names are the 2016 women. Buchanan and Lawrence started together for Nikki Izzo-Brown, won seven Big 12 titles, and took the Mountaineers to the program’s first College Cup, where they finished as national runner-up. Holmes scored 2,001 points in the same span. None of them could be on a ballot before this year.

The department still sold the class around Beilein, who is already in the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. The file that could not have been opened in 2025 is the soccer one.

Two Teammates Carry Olympic Gold Into the Hall

Buchanan, a center back from Brampton, Ontario, is the most decorated player in WVU women’s soccer history. She started 90 of 91 matches. The back line in those four seasons allowed 62 goals and posted 55 shutouts, and she added 8 goals and 9 assists.

In 2016 she became the first Mountaineer to win the MAC Hermann Trophy, also taking the Honda Cup for soccer and national player of the year honors from espnW and TopDrawerSoccer.com. She is the only player in program history with an All-America honor in every season, including three straight NSCAA first teams, and she was Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year four times.

That senior defense won 23 games, posted 18 shutouts, and spent eight weeks at No. 1, the program’s first time there. WVU swept the Big 12 again and reached the College Cup. Buchanan was NCAA Tournament defensive MVP.

Lawrence, a Toronto midfielder, started 87 of 91 matches and finished with 29 career assists, third in school history. She was a three-time All-American, a two-time Hermann Trophy semifinalist, and a four-time All-Big 12 first-team pick. In 2016 she led the team with 10 assists, made the College Cup all-tournament team, and was the Big 12 championship’s most outstanding offensive player.

In 2015 they became the first WVU women’s soccer pair named to the NSCAA All-America first team in the same season. Before that junior year, Lawrence started all five of Canada’s matches at the FIFA Women’s World Cup and scored in a 1-1 draw with the Netherlands. Buchanan, still a college defender, won the tournament’s Best Young Player award.

Two of the best to ever take the pitch for the Mountaineers, now officially members of the WVU Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2026 🌟

Kadeisha Buchanan & Ashley Lawrence

🔹 2016 College Cup participants, Olympic Gold Medalists, seven-time Big 12 Champions#HailWV pic.twitter.com/M3EavrOuaV

— WVU Women's Soccer (@wvuwomenssoccer) August 7, 2026

They collected Olympic bronze together in Rio in 2016, while they were still Mountaineers, in a 2-1 win over host Brazil in the third-place match. Both played all 90 minutes. Lawrence assisted the first goal. They were the first players from the WVU women’s soccer program to win Olympic medals.

Buchanan later added gold in Tokyo and bronze in Rio, playing every minute of Canada’s six Tokyo matches for 600 minutes. Lawrence was a key contributor to Canada’s Tokyo gold and logged 590 minutes across those six games. Both started four matches in Paris in 2024, where Canada finished seventh.

OLYMPIC MINUTES FOR THE WVU PAIR

Buchanan was Canada Soccer Player of the Year in 2015, 2017 and 2020. She signed with Olympique Lyonnais in January 2017 and later moved to Chelsea. Lawrence signed with Paris Saint-Germain the same month, became the club’s most-capped international with 178 appearances, and was Canada’s player of the year in 2019. She finished eighth in the 2021 Ballon d’Or and made the IFFHS Women’s World Team.

After joining Chelsea in 2023 she won two English league titles, the FA Cup and the League Cup. She now plays for OL Lyonnes, where she won three domestic trophies in her first season and reached the 2026 UEFA Women’s Champions League final.

The biggest learning I had was just the competitiveness, just the willingness to win, doing whatever it takes to win. And that’s something that has stuck with me up until today.

Ashley Lawrence, on the Voice in Sport podcast

Izzo-Brown, who coached both of them, said a second World Cup chance for the pair spoke to their talent and hard work. The hall is late relative to what they did after they left. It is on time relative to its own rules.

Beilein Collects a Second Hall in Two Months

Beilein was named WVU’s 20th men’s basketball coach on April 18, 2002, and went 104-60 with four straight postseason berths. The 2005 team, a No. 7 seed, beat Creighton, Wake Forest and Texas Tech, then lost to Louisville in overtime in the Elite Eight, the program’s first trip that far since 1959. The 2004-05 group beat eight ranked teams.

In 2006 the Mountaineers made the Sweet 16 again, the first consecutive regional trips since 1959 and 1960. In 2007 they missed the NCAA field after 21 regular-season wins, took the NIT’s No. 1 seed, and won the title at Madison Square Garden, beating Mississippi State on a buzzer-beater in the semifinals and Clemson in the final. It was WVU’s first NIT crown since 1942.

He coached Kevin Pittsnogle, the program’s first men’s basketball All-American since 1972, and never worked as an assistant at any stop. His full college ledger is 829-468 (.639) across 41 years, with 23 seasons of 20 or more wins and a winning record in 35 seasons. He ranks 22nd in Division I victories with 754.

BEILEIN’S HALL CALENDAR

1. April 18, 2002: Named West Virginia’s 20th men’s basketball coach.
2. 2005: Reaches the NCAA Elite Eight, the program’s first since 1959.
3. 2007: Wins the NIT at Madison Square Garden, then leaves for Michigan.
4. 2022: Elected to the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.
5. August 3, 2026: Named to Michigan’s Athletics Hall of Honor class.
6. September 11, 2026: Inducted at Crisler Center.
7. October 10, 2026: Scheduled for induction at Milan Puskar Stadium.

Michigan already hung its plaque. In 12 seasons from 2007 to 2019 he went 278-150, made nine NCAA tournaments, reached national title games in 2013 and 2018, and left as the winningest coach in Michigan history. He won Big Ten regular-season titles in 2012 and 2014, tournament titles in 2017 and 2018, and helped nine Wolverines into the NBA draft, seven in the first round.

The WVU honor is the one that waited. He had been eligible for nine years before this class.

What Bria Holmes Left on the Scoreboard

Holmes, a 6-foot-1 guard from New Haven, Connecticut, is one of four West Virginia women’s basketball players with more than 2,000 career points. She finished with 2,001 points, 483 rebounds, 309 assists, 171 steals and 101 blocks in 138 games, still the program record for games played when she left.

Playing for Mike Carey from 2013 to 2016, she was a three-time unanimous All-Big 12 first-team pick and a two-time Associated Press All-America honorable mention. She was the first Mountaineer to score 500 or more points in three straight seasons, averaging 15.2 as a sophomore, 18.8 as a junior and 16.8 as a senior. Career highs included 36 points against Seton Hall. She reached 2,000 with 21 points against Ohio State, after 26 points and eight assists against Princeton, a school NCAA tournament record for assists.

HOLMES AT WEST VIRGINIA

• Career points: 2,001, with 731 field goals, 189 threes and 350 free throws.
• Draft slot: 11th overall in 2016, then the highest WNBA pick in school history, by the Atlanta Dream.
• WNBA run: Five seasons with Atlanta, Connecticut, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, 136 games, 6.5 points a night.
• Degree: Criminology, class of 2016; she lives in New Haven with her daughter, Diona.

She shares a graduating year with Buchanan and Lawrence. The hall’s clock treated the three of them the same way, even if the announcement treated them as supporting names.

Turnbull’s 287 Wins Came With a Quiet Exit

Craig Turnbull, from Erie, Pennsylvania, coached West Virginia wrestling from 1979 to 2014, a 35-year tenure that produced 287 dual-meet wins. That total ranked in the top 100 for college wrestling coaches across divisions. He is the winningest coach in program history.

He sent 166 wrestlers to the NCAA tournament and coached 18 of them to 26 All-America honors. The team finished in the NCAA top 25 twelve times, with a program-best sixth place in 1991. In the Eastern Wrestling League he won tournament titles in 1996, 2002 and 2004 and dual titles in 1990, 1991, 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2005, and he was league coach of the year in 1990, 1998, 2002 and 2004. His wrestlers won 42 EWL individual titles.

FIVE NCAA TITLES UNDER TURNBULL

• Scott Collins: 142 pounds, 1991.
• Dean Morrison: 177 pounds, 1994.
• Greg Jones: 174 pounds in 2002, then 184 pounds in 2004 and 2005.
• Jones in 2005: Named Most Outstanding Wrestler at the NCAA championships.
• The room he left: 26 All-America honors across 18 wrestlers.

Athletics director Oliver Luck did not renew the contract in March 2014 and thanked Turnbull for his years as head coach. The hall waited until two years after first eligibility. The dual-meet record from that run was 287-214-9.

A Linebacker Recruited by Saban and a Racer Who Forced Open Prize Money

Dennis Fowlkes, an inside linebacker from Columbus, Ohio, played from 1979 to 1982 for Frank Cignetti Sr. and Don Nehlen after Nick Saban recruited him. He finished with 459 tackles, 286 of them unassisted, second in school history in solo tackles and third in total tackles, plus 18 tackles for loss, 9 sacks and 7 interceptions.

West Virginia won 29 games in his four years, including nine in each of his last two seasons. He had 7 tackles and 2 tackles for loss in the 1981 Peach Bowl win over Florida and 8 tackles in the 1982 Gator Bowl against Florida State. As a sophomore he recorded 150 tackles. He had 16 solo tackles against Virginia Tech in 1980, one shy of the school record, and 20-tackle games against Rutgers and Pitt. In the middle, he freed All-American Darryl Talley to work the edge.

He played four NFL seasons, three with the Minnesota Vikings from 1983 to 1985 and one with the Miami Dolphins in 1987, 43 games with 11 starts. He lives in Columbus with his wife, Janice.

Alex Kasich of Hermitage, Pennsylvania, ran cross country and track from 1972 to 1976. After placing 153rd at his first NCAA cross country meet, he finished 16th at the 1975 championships in State College in 29:14.6 for All-America honors. As a junior in 1974 he became the first WVU harrier to go unbeaten in the regular season, winning eight races, and in 1975 he won the USTFF cross country national title. He set school records in the indoor 2-mile (8:39.7) and 3-mile (13:35.8) and the outdoor 3-mile (13:43.0) and 6-mile (28:32.4).

On the roads he placed ninth at the 1981 New York City Marathon in 2:13:19 and set an American record at 30 kilometers in 1982 in 1:33:56. New York banned him from that 1981 marathon for openly taking prize money at a Nike race. An injunction followed, The Athletics Congress let him run, and within a month the governing body changed the rules so athletes could be paid. He lives in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and competes in darts.

Induction Comes Before the Arizona Kickoff

The ceremony is set for Saturday, Oct. 10, on the field at Milan Puskar Stadium before West Virginia plays Arizona. A football Saturday will hold a class that is one football player, two soccer Olympians, a 2,000-point guard, a distance runner who helped crack amateur rules, and two coaches who rebuilt programs on different calendars.

Beilein already stood at Crisler Center on Sept. 11. Buchanan and Lawrence still play in Europe. Holmes is home in New Haven. Turnbull, Fowlkes and Kasich are the longer waits on the same plaque. The hall is catching the 2016 soccer generation at the first hour it was allowed to try.