Education
Stanford University.
Stanford University.
An Air Force brat, Ruark lived in five states, the Panama Canal Zone, and the Philippines before enrolling at Stanford University in 1978. She became the school"s first women"s basketball star: in her freshman season of 1978-1979, she averaged 21.3 points and 8.4 rebounds per game and was named to the first team of the Northern California Athletic Conference (in which Stanford women"s basketball played from 1977 to 1982). Her 21.3 points per game was a Stanford season record until it was broken by Candice Wiggins in the 2005-2006 season.
She returned to play two more seasons at Stanford, becoming the first Stanford player to score 2,000 points in her career.
In 1982, she helped lead the Stanford women to their first-ever postseason appearance in the 1982 National Collegiate Athletic Association Women"s Division I Basketball Tournament. Her daughter, Katie Hoff, is a swimmer who competed in both the 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing Olympics, medaling in the latter games.
She is a member of the Stanford Athletic Hall of Fame.