Born Yolanda Nicole Caldwell in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Fargas was raised by her mother and attended public schools. She graduated from Oak Ridge High School in 1990. She was a member of the school basketball team, coached by Jill Prudden, that won the Tennessee state championship in 1988. As of 2009, she still held the high school's single-season records for total points scored and for successful free throws.
College and career
She attended the University of Tennessee from 1990 to 1994, playing as a guard under coach Pat Summitt on the university's Lady Vols basketball team, which compiled a 118–13 won-loss record during her playing years. Fargas was known for her strong defensive play and her three-point shooting. Her defensive play in the 1991 NCAA tournament final game, in which the Lady Vols defeated the University of Virginia in overtime, was considered a key factor in her team's victory. She was named to Southeastern Conference All-Freshman team that same year, and in both her junior and years she received the university's Gloria Ray Leadership Award. Although she missed portions of two seasons due to injuries, her four-year statistics as a three-point shooter, with 128 three-point field goals made out of 364 attempts, place her in the all-time top 10 at Tennessee.
Tennessee Fargas returned to basketball in 1998 as a member of Pat Summitt's coaching staff, serving as graduate assistant for administration, in which position she served the coaching staff in all aspects of basketball operations during the 1998–1999 season. The following season she joined the University of Virginia as an assistant coach, assuming responsibilities for recruiting, scouting, film exchange, player development, monitoring academic progress and camps. In 2002, she left Virginia to return to the University of Tennessee as an assistant coach for the 2002–03 season and recruiting director beginning in the spring of 2003. UCLA She was appointed head coach for UCLA on April 17, 2008, with a five-year contract valued at nearly $1.5 million, succeeding Kathy Olivier. In her first season as coach, the UCLA team compiled a regular season record of 18 wins and 11 losses. During the 2009–2010 season, her team placed second in the Pac-10 and was defeated by second ranked Stanford in the Pac-10 tournament. Her success was unprecedented at UCLA's women's basketball and she sought a large raise in her contract. Despite a reported offer of a generous increase by UCLA, the school could not match the $900,000 annually that LSU offered so she returned to coach in the SEC at LSU. LSU On April 2, 2011, Louisiana State University announced that Fargas would become the head coach for the LSU Lady Tigers team. Her contract called for her to be paid $900,000 per season. In seven seasons with the Lady Tigers, she has posted a 131–90 record and advanced to the NCAA Tournament in her first seven seasons; however, she has lost more games and posted a lower winning percentage with each passing season which culminated to posting her first losing record in 2016 and missing the NCAA tournament. Her team rebounded in 2017 and, once again, advanced to the NCAA Tournament.
In the company of Holly Warlick, a former assistant coach for University of Tennessee women's basketball, Fargas has conducted a series of three long-distance motorcycle road trips, called "Cruisin' for a Cause", to promote awareness of breast cancer and to raise money for research on this disease. In their first trip, in 2007, they rode their Harley-Davidson motorcycles from Berkeley, California to Knoxville, Tennessee. As of 2008, the two women's non-profit organization, Champions for a Cause, had raised nearly $100,000. The 2010 road trip took them through Washington, DC and New York City to Niagara Falls and back.
Awards
In May 2009 she received the Woman of Excellence Award from the LadyLike Foundation for her excellence as a coach and for fund-raising activities for breast cancer awareness. Fargas was named 2010 Pac-10 Coach of the Year by the conference coaches and by the media in her second year of coaching at UCLA.
