Longtime Arizona State women's basketball coach Charli Turner Thorne announced Thursday that she is retiring after 25 seasons at the helm in Tempe.
Turner Thorne, 55, is the winningest coach in program history and the second-winningest coach in Pac-12 women's basketball history behind Stanford's Tara VanDerveer. She finished her career with a final record of 488-294 at ASU.
Arizona State athletics director Ray Anderson said in a news conference Thursday that it was Turner Thorne's decision to step away.
"After 25 years, it's been my honor to be here and serve," Turner Thorne said. "It's just time. It's just time."
The news comes a day after the conclusion of the Sun Devils' season in the Pac-12 tournament, where they fell to Oregon State 59-54 in the first round. The Sun Devils went 12-14 this season, including 4-9 in league play, where they finished ninth in the standings.
"The worst acronym ever invented was invented by me: FEFS. It means 'finish everything, finish strong,'" Turner Thorne said. "And while from a basketball standpoint maybe we didn't quite do what we wanted to do this year, anybody who's ever coached knows your best coaching job is never your best record. And I do feel like we emptied out, gave everything we had and it's time."
Turner Thorne elevated Arizona State to consistent relevancy in the Pac-12 and on the national scene, as her Sun Devils teams made 14 NCAA tournament appearances, most recently in 2019. Most notably, Turner Thorne guided Arizona State to the Sweet 16 three times and Elite Eight twice, in 2007 and 2009.
Arizona State won its first of two Pac-12 regular-season titles in 2001 (the other was in 2016) and took home the crown in the inaugural Pac-12 women's basketball tournament in 2002.
"It's always been a good conference. Some years there, it was us and Stanford, back and forth," Turner Thorne said. "And I really think the Pac-12 Network did an unbelievable job of raising our conference up because people never watched us. And then when they saw [Arizona State alum] Briann January and a lot of players and there was that recognition, it just kind of elevated everything. I'm proud of the players and the staff that we've coached that were perennial top three and in the running for championships. We definitely set a standard."
Prior to arriving in Tempe in June 1996, Turner Thorne spent three seasons as the coach at Northern Arizona. She took a leave of absence from Arizona State during the 2011-12 season before returning to the program.
Turner Thorne also played three years for VanDerveer in college at Stanford, where she graduated in 1988.
While Turner Thorne will be stepping away from the game -- she credited in part the strain from the COVID-19 pandemic these past few years in pushing her toward retirement -- she expressed interest in eventually going into broadcasting, writing or teaching, and said she'll be tending to her parents.
"I'm excited to use this new chapter to continue to help people and hopefully serve our community here at an even grander scale," Turner Thorne said. "And maybe have a few off-days in between, every now and then."
Turner Thorne said assistant coach Nikki Blue is "handling things for [Arizona State women's basketball] right now" and "hopefully will get looked at hard" as her replacement.