Vice President and Director of Athletics Wren Baker announced the 36th class in the WVU Sports Hall of Fame. The class includes John Beilein, Kadeisha Buchanan, Dennis Fowlkes, Bria Holmes, Alex Kasich, Ashley Lawrence, and Craig Turnbull. The 2026 class brings the total number of inductees to 250 over 36 classes. Beilein, already a member of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame, is getting his second induction in a month. The ceremony is slated for Saturday, October 10, before the West Virginia football game against Arizona. Read more: WVU announces 2026 Sports Hall of Fame class, headlined by John Beilein.
John Beilein
The WVU honor is actually the second Hall of Fame call Beilein has received in the span of a month. He’s also headlining Michigan’s 2026 Athletics Hall of Honor class, set for induction on September 11 at the Crisler Center. It is just five weeks before he is inducted into WVU’s Sports Hall of Fame in Morgantown. Beilein is now being celebrated by both programs he built into national powers, a rare distinction for a coach who spent parts of his career at both.
“You always doubt it, but when you move around to programs you know you have a family. You’ve got to make it,” Beilein said during his 2022 induction into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. “There’s no other way than to make it, so you grind away and do the best you can to get it done.”
At WVU from 2003-07, Beilein went 104-60 and 40-40 in the Big East. He led the Mountaineers to the 2005 Elite Eight, the 2006 Sweet 16, and a 2007 NIT Championship. He later became the winningest coach in Michigan history, leading the Wolverines to two national championship appearances.
Kadeisha Buchanan
Kadeisha Buchanan is the most decorated player in WVU Women’s Soccer history. She won the 2016 Hermann Trophy and led the Mountaineers to their only College Cup appearance.
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She has since won titles at Olympique Lyonnais and Chelsea, and captured Olympic gold with Canada in 2020. Playing for coach Nikki Izzo-Brown from 2013-16, she helped propel the team to No. 1, the first-ever top ranking for the team, lasting eight weeks in 2016.
Dennis Fowlkes
Dennis Fowlkes was a standout inside linebacker under Don Nehlen and Frank Cignetti Sr. from 1979-82. He finished his career with 459 tackles, 18 tackles for loss, nine sacks, and seven interceptions. Fowlkes sits third all-time in tackles in WVU history and is second all-time with 286 solo tackles. He played four NFL seasons with the Vikings and Dolphins.
Bria Holmes
Bria Holmes played under coach Mike Carey from 2013-16 and is one of four players to score over 2,000 career points. Holmes was the first Mountaineer to score 500 or more points in three consecutive seasons. She was selected 11th overall in the first round by the Atlanta Dream in the 2016 WNBA Draft.
Alex Kasich
Alex Kasich was an All-American distance runner from 1972-76. Kasich was named the 1975 Ray McCoy Track Athlete of the Year and later became one of the top road racers in the country. He set an American record at 30 kilometers in 1982 and played a role in the sport’s shift from amateur to professional status.
Ashley Lawrence
Ashley Lawrence earned three All-America honors as a midfielder and helped lead alongside Buchanan from 2013-16. The 2016 team had a program-best 23 wins and 18 shutouts. She is now one of the most decorated players in Canadian national team history, winning Olympic gold and playing in multiple Champions League finals for PSG and Chelsea.
Craig Turnbull
Craig Turnbull coached WVU wrestling for 35 years from 1979-2014. He is the winningest coach in program history with 287 victories and three national champions among his wrestlers. He was named Eastern Wrestling League Coach of the Year four times in 1990, 1998, 2002, and 2004.
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