NBA Broadcasting Trailblazer Stephanie Ready ('98) to Keynote Coppin State University’s Convocation 2026

BALTIMORE — Coppin State University announced that Stephanie Ready ('98), will deliver the keynote address at Convocation 2026 on Thursday, September 3, as the university welcomes one of the largest incoming classes in university history to the campus where Ready's own story began. 

Ready, a former Coppin State student-athlete, became the first woman to coach a men’s professional basketball team and later the NBA’s first full-time female game analyst. Her return embodies this year’s Convocation theme: pride and tradition binds the Coppin community together, past, present, and future. 

“Stephanie Ready is what a Coppin education looks like in full flight,” said Coppin State University President Anthony L. Jenkins, Ph.D. “She arrived on this campus with talent and a dream, and she has spent her career doing what no woman had done before her. There is no better Eagle to welcome our newest scholars into the nest.” 

This year’s ceremony will mark several first for Coppin State. For the first time, Convocation will move to the Physical Education Complex arena to accommodate one of the largest incoming classes in Coppin State University history, The ceremony will begin at 9:30 a.m. 

To learn more about Coppin State’s Convocation and its speaker, visit https://www.coppin.edu/university-convocation.

For Media inquiries contact CherRae Dickerson, cdickerson@coppin.edu.