Jimmy Kolaitis wasn’t looking to leave UAB. He just finished his second season leading the Blazers, and the team had made marked improvements under his tutelage. He was finally coaching close to home again, and his program was on an upward path.
Then Arizona State came knocking on the door. The Sun Devils had a vacant assistant coaching position and Trisha Ford, a longtime friend of Kolaitis’, gave her old buddy a call.
“When this situation came up at the end of the season, Trisha wanted to have a conversation about the job,” Kolaitis told JWOS. “I’ve known her for a long time, and I mentioned to her that it was going to be difficult to pull me away [from UAB]. I told her ‘I like where I am, I love where I am.’ I wanted to see this program built up.”
Content to stay where he was and continue building the UAB program, Kolaitis turned down Arizona State’s inaugural offer. Some time later, though, Ford came back with what Kolaitis called “an offer that I couldn’t refuse,” and he accepted the position.
Prior to taking over at UAB, Kolaitis had long been seen as a future head coaching star. Now, as he again will be an assistant coach, Kolaitis said that he doesn’t put a lot of stock in titles: “Being a head coach or an assistant, being at a Power Five or non-Power Five school, or whatever the case may be; what I love to do is just to coach. I love to have the opportunity to work with young athletes and to help them develop not just as athletes, but as people. That’s my main goal, and that’s what I love to do… being an assistant coach or being a head coach, in whatever role, I just enjoy coaching the game and helping these young women develop as people.”
At Arizona State, assistant coach Jeff Harger already works with the team’s hitters. A renowned hitting coach in his own right, Kolaitis said that he doesn’t intend to go in and take over the offense, but instead envisions a different approach.
“At the end of the day, I think we’re going to be able to bounce off of each other really well,” Kolaitis said. “Everybody wants to say ‘this one is the hitting guy’ or ‘this is the hitting coach or the infield coach,’ but I think a lot of times, coaches can work together to be good in certain areas. Jeff has done a great job on the offensive side, and I think with my experience coming in, being a second eye for him is going to be beneficial. We could tag-team the defense a little bit, and with my head coaching experience, that will give a second eye for Trisha as well. And in recruiting, I think that’s where my strength comes in more than anything.”
Indeed a widely-acclaimed recruiter, Kolaitis’ recruiting philosophy is simple: “I take pride in my evaluations, and I take the time to build relationships with people. I think that’s ultimately what it comes down to: relationships with people.”
Accepting Arizona State’s second offer meant that Kolaitis would have to say goodbye to his UAB squad; a tight-knit program, he called the departure “the most difficult decision” he had ever made. “These young ladies [at UAB]… I can’t thank them enough,” he noted. “Along with my staff, I’ve been around them for two years and they’ve given me everything that they had. You don’t get that from all of your players all of the time, and to walk away from what they did for me and for this program was really, really difficult.”
The move to Tempe will mark Kolaitis’ second venture in the PAC-12; he previously spent five years as an assistant coach at Oregon. Now returning to a conference that he’s very familiar with, Kolaitis hopes for an extended stay in Tempe.
“I hope to be there for a while,” Kolaitis said. “I hope to accomplish what we want to accomplish. We want to win a national championship, but you know, you can never guarantee anything so you have to work for it. For sure, though, it’s somewhere that I’d like to be and settle in a little bit.”
