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Home > SECWB News & More! > Coaching > Coaching Vacancies > The Neverending Season
The Neverending Season
by LeAnne Harrington
Posted: May 7th, 2007 @ 11:12pm
The 2006-2007 women’s college basketball season will go down in history as one of the longest seasons ever. Even though practice began in the Fall of 2006 and the Tennessee Lady Vols were crowned National Champs on April 3, all according to a tightly controlled schedule, there are still loose ends to this season that have yet to be tied up. In a year filled with any number of compelling stories, the biggest story of all may very well be the unprecedented number of coaching changes that are still taking place in the women’s game. It all began with the announcement back in February that Carolyn Peck would not return as head coach at Florida. Who could have predicted that in the next few months, 5 of the 12 SEC women’s basketball head coaches would resign or be forced out? Add to that all the high profile coaching vacancies around the rest of country, several of which still remain unfilled, and this season could best be categorized as unsettled.
In a sport long known for it’s relative stability in the coaching ranks compared to their male counterparts, what has brought about the recent change of events? There is no clear-cut single answer. Instead, there are probably several factors that are affecting the landscape of the women’s game. Women’s college basketball has long labored in the shadow of the men’s game, not to mention competing for athletic budget dollars with the cash cow that is collegiate football. Very few, if any, women’s basketball programs are self-sufficient. But the women’s game is indeed evolving. The game is becoming faster, more athletic, and therefore more appealing to the masses. Attendance is up in almost every conference across the nation. Add to that the number of games that are being aired on television, both regionally and nationally, and the women’s game is enjoying unprecedented exposure. Athletic directors are no longer satisfied with a program that goes .500 in league play and posts a winning record by playing non-conference patsies. Athletic departments around the country look at the continued success of the SEC, ACC and Big Ten in women’s college basketball and want their own slice of that pie.
But to lure big-time coaches takes big-time money, and we’ve seen that first-hand these past few months. Hence the “Millionaire Coaches Club” that used to be an exclusive group of two has seen the addition of names such as Goestenkors and Mulkey. Goestenkors, although ostensibly leaving Duke to move on to a new challenge at Texas, certainly wasn’t deterred by the money thrown her way by the Longhorns. Some schools, realizing they have a winning coach on staff who is suddenly attractive to other colleges and universities set on luring them away, have felt compelled to pony up with hefty raises and long-term extensions in hopes of keeping them from having a wandering eye. Such is the situation for Mulkey at Baylor, Dawn Staley at Temple, and Joanne Boyle at Cal. (I would have added Joanne P. McCallie’s name to that list, but she left Michigan State for Duke despite having signed a long-term extension just weeks before her departure.) Also consider that C. Vivian Stringer is now making equal pay to that of the men’s basketball coach at Rutgers, and we begin to see that the long tradition of inequity in pay between the coaches of men’s and women’s college basketball is indeed narrowing.
But with the added exposure and increased pay comes added pressure to win. Coaches and players have always been driven to win -- that’s why they coach and play in athletic competition. But outside pressures are inevitably going to mount. ADs want a return on the dollars spent, and boosters, contributors and average fans want to see immediate results as well. Otherwise they begin to question the wisdom of plunking down that much money.
So what does this mean for the women’s game? Only time will tell, but a season with over 30 Division I coaching changes such as what we are witnessing currently may become the norm instead of the exception. The window of opportunity to turn a program around or take it to the next level will inevitably shorten. Instead of the normal 4 or 5 years a new coach is traditionally given to provide results, we may see more and more who are kicked to the curb if they don’t produce “winners” within 2 or 3 years. The natural progression will be more coaching turnovers in years to come. Maybe Carol Ross and Mickie DeMoss really did see the handwriting on the wall and decided to leave the pressure-cooker world that women’s college basketball is becoming. And maybe each new coach should be given an ulimited supply of Pepto-Bismol. They just may need it to survive.
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