Purdue Women's Basketball Associate Head Coach Beth Couture Retires

After spending seven seasons on the sidelines for Purdue women's basketball, associate head coach Beth Couture will retire from coaching, the school announced.

Couture came to West Lafayette prior to the 2016-17 season, serving as an assistant coach for three years before being promoted to associate head coach in 2019. The longtime assistant played a large part in the transition period for head coach Katie Gearlds, who took over less than two months before the start of the 2021-22 season.

She wrapped up her coaching career by helping guide the Boilermakers to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since her debut season at Purdue.

Prior to coming to West Lafayette, Couture started her coaching career at Presbyterian College, where she spent 13 seasons as the program's head coach and two as an assistant. During her time in Clinton, South Carolina, Couture led the program to 258 wins and six NCAA postseason appearances.

Following her tenure at Presbyterian, she became the head coach at Butler. With the Bulldogs, she won 193 games in 12 seasons and took the school to the WNIT five times. Couture also spent the 2015 season as the associate head coach at Cleveland State before joining Sharon Versyp's staff with the Boilermakers.

Couture was a standout at Erskine College as a player, earning a Kodak All-American selection during her senior season. She scored over 2,000 points during her college career and was inducted into the Eskrine College Hall of Fame in 1989.

Katie Gearlds will now be tasked with finding Couture's replacement with the off-season underway.