Former Bentley University women's basketball coach and assistant athletics director Paula Mullen, who helped lay the cornerstone of what is one of the elite women's basketball programs in the country, lost a long battle with cancer on Saturday, March 23.

Mullen, who was 61, coached the Falcons from 1978-84, amassing a record of 108-42 while leading Bentley to the first three Northeast-8 regular season championships and two of the first three NE-8 tournament titles (1982, 1984). She received the conference's first Women's Basketball Coach of the Year award in 1982 and was also a co-recipient of the award two years later.

Each of her six Bentley teams earned postseason tournament berths, including NCAA appearances annually from 1982-84.

After stepping down as coach, the 1996 inductee into the Bentley Athletic Hall of Fame was an assistant athletics director for three years, from 1984-87. Her tenure at Bentley also included coaching the field hockey team in 1978.

"The type of person that Paula was is exemplified by how she fought this terrible disease for over 20 years and never gave an indication that anything was wrong" said Bentley Athletics Director Bob DeFelice. "She was going to win, no matter what.

"We should all hope that we have an ounce of her substance and character in our lives," praised DeFelice.

Mullen, a 1973 graduate of the University of New Hampshire, received her Master's Degree from Bentley in 1987 and earned her Doctorate from Nova University. After leaving Bentley, she went on to a long career in secondary education, including Athletics Director at Wakefield Memorial High School and Principal at Galvin Middle School in Wakefield.

A funeral mass was held on Tuesday, Apr. 2

Obituary