College of Charleston head coach Linda Kalafatis earned her 1,000th career win over the weekend, reaching the milestone in a victory over Appalachian State. Now in her seventh season as the Cougars’ head coach, Kalafatis’ resume also includes sixteen years as the head coach at Ohio State, as well as tenures at the helm of Akron and California University of Pennsylvania.
After her team’s weekend slate, Kalafatis sat down to talk about the milestone win, and to reflect on her decades-long successful career.
On what the milestone win meant to her… “Honestly, it just felt good to get another win on the season. Going into the season, I knew at some point I was close, though I didn’t know how close, and our SID put it out there, and I immediately said, ‘don’t mention this again’ because I knew the kids would try… they’ve been trying so hard… we didn’t get off to the start that we would have liked to this season, so it just felt good for the kids to win a game, to win a close game… moreso now, taking it in [several days later], I’ve heard from some former players and folks up in the coaching ranks, and it probably means a little bit more now than it did right after the game, quite honestly, but I guess it just means that I stayed at it! Coaching has never been easy, but there are challenges that we didn’t have before, and it’s a grind.”
On how she has reflected on her career since recording win #1,000… “Not much right now… I mean, a little bit, with the generations of student-athletes that have reached out, but I had to get ready for the next game, ya know?! And then the game after that… you don’t have a whole lot of time. In this business, you’re always having to look ahead – looking at recruits and if we’re keeping in touch with them, and who’s on our next list, and where are we at for next year. You don’t often get the time to look back, but what I am grateful for is the young women, my former student-athletes, who have reached out, and the memories that they spark. Mostly good memories, of course, but just the involvement that we’ve been able to have with them. That’s the glance-back that I get to take, but maybe when the season ends, I’ll get a chance to look back and really reflect.”
On the impact that the win made on her current team… “For sure, it was [a bright spot]. And honestly, the kids probably were thinking about it more than me… I think they put some added pressure on themselves. You know, one comment that a kid made was ‘we’ve been trying to do this. We tried to do this games ago.’ And I told them that you know, I could tell. So it’s kind of nice that it’s done and now we can just focus on us and our process and what we need to do… I’ve never set this out as a goal for me. My mission was that I can do better than what I had as a female athlete, and that’s why I got into coaching, so that when [my players’]career ends, they feel good about their experience and about everything they learned, and the relationships they made and can be better prepared for life. Now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to win. I’m pretty competitive, but I think the wins just became a byproduct of that and, to look back on it, I guess a lot of people haven’t done it, so that’s pretty cool.”
On longevity in coaching… “Even nowadays in college athletics, I don’t know how many people are going to be coaches for twenty-five, thirty years anymore. That’s going to be harder and harder to do. I’m honored to work and have worked with so many great coaches and athletes, and to have been around the game to see a lot of growth and a lot of good things happen.”
