Sue Ludwig Returns Home to Join Former Teammate Legette-Jack's Staff
Sue Ludwig, a two-time All-BIG EAST selection for the Orange, is coming home to join her former teammate Felisha Legette-Jack on the sidelines in the Carrier Dome as an assistant coach. Ludwig, who scored 1,214 career points and ranks 17th on the all-time scoring list at Syracuse, brings over 30 years of coaching experience to the women’s basketball program.
“I am thrilled to add Sue Ludwig to our staff here at SU,” Legette-Jack said. “Sue will bring with her an insatiable love for our great university and our women’s basketball team. Not only had Sue won 586 games to become the winningest high school girls’ basketball coach in the state of New York, she has a strong mind for the offensive side of the ball, and she is known for developing her guards’ IQ for the game.”
Ludwig returns home to the Hill after spending the last 31 years as the head varsity girls’ basketball coach at Westhill High School on Syracuse’s west side. While at Westhill, Ludwig set a New York State Section III record for wins amongst female high school coaches with a career record 585-116. She guided the Warriors to 22 Onondaga League Championships, 11 Section III Championships, and five New York State Regional Championships. Her Warriors teams made five New York State Final Fours and won the New York State Championship in 1996.
“My first big-time recruit to SU is signing my college point guard to join me on this journey to pursue championships through our CAB [character, academics, basketball] approach in the classroom and on the court,” Legette-Jack added. “Please help me welcome Sue Ludwig back home.”
Ludwig and Legette-Jack first came to Syracuse together as freshmen in 1984. The duo helped guide the Orange to their first BIG EAST Championship and NCAA Tournament appearance in program history in their first season donning orange. Ludwig quarterbacked SU as the team’s point guard for four seasons while the Orange made two trips to the NCAA Tournament and recorded the program’s first 20-win season in 1988 en route to earning All-BIG EAST First Team honors in her final year.
“The opportunity to come back to my alma mater and join forces with Felisha [Legette-Jack], my former teammate and one of my best friends, doing what we love and are so incredibly passionate about, is a dream come true,” Ludwig said. “Our journey will be about what we’ve always stood for in coaching; creating a foundation of ‘family’ with our student-athletes in pursuing excellence in the classroom, on the court and in life! I’m beyond excited to be a part of this next chapter of Syracuse Women’s Basketball.”
She served as team captain alongside Legette-Jack as a junior and senior and was the first player in program history to amass 500 career assists. She currently ranks fifth in career minutes (3,879), sixth in assists (529), assists average (4.4), steals (254), steals average (2.1) and ninth in free throws made (306) in the Syracuse record books.
From 2009-14 Ludwig was a NCAA women’s basketball officials’ rater for the BIG EAST and ACC. She participated in pregame officials’ meetings and completed computer ratings of each official during competition.
Since 2001, Ludwig has worked at Central Square Schools in Central Square, N.Y., as a school psychologist and is a certified New York State school psychologist.
Ludwig was inducted into the Greater Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame in 2011 and was a Syracuse Letterwinner of Distinction in 2017. She was named an Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Women’s Basketball Legend in 2014.
A 1988 graduate of Syracuse with a bachelor’s degree in consumer studies, Ludwig earned her master’s in psychology from SUNY Oswego in 1999.
