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Texas Tech's Marsha Sharp, a member of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame and the school's longest-tenured coach, has announced her resignation effective at the end of this season.

Tech athletic director Gerald Myers said Sharp, 53, will remain in the department as an associate athletic director for special projects and that the university will conduct a national search to find a replacement.

"When you do something for 24 years, you have to be sure that it's time to make the next step," Sharp said during a hastily arranged news conference Friday. "I probably have (known) that I was closer to doing it for the last three or four years than I had at any point in my career before.

"It just became evident to me that it was time to change directions a little bit. I needed to maybe look at some different opportunities. I was in a situation where I pretty much knew that the time was right for me."

Finding a replacement who has anything close to Sharp's credentials won't be easy. In addition to guiding Texas Tech to an NCAA championship in 1993 — the first national team title in school history — Sharp has won eight conference titles and two national coach of the year awards.

She has a 570-187 career record, including a 159-50 mark in the defunct Southwest Conference and a 117-41 mark in the Big 12. Tech is 13-12 (8-6 in the Big 12) this season.

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