(We made a list. We checked it twice. From now until New Year’s Eve, we are counting down the top ten headlines of 2018. Today, we look at #4 on our list.)
4. Coaching carousel winds on
Presbyterian was the first Division I school to make a move at the head coaching position this summer, with then-head coach Britne Stubbs announcing her resignation before the season’s end. The offseason’s dawn brought a handful of widely-expected retirements from a number of coaches who had built their programs from the ground up, including Connie Clark at Texas; Sandy Pearsall at Louisville; and Scot Thomas at Virginia Tech.
Though some hires were made early, many of which opened other jobs at the mid-major level, the Carousel didn’t really start spinning at full speed until former Oregon head coach Mike White was announced as the new head coach at Texas. After the Ducks declined to make an effort to keep him in Eugene, White headed to Austin to don burnt orange and white and begin to revitalize the Longhorn program.
That move not only caught some off-guard – under White’s leadership, Oregon had earned the #1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament not one month prior – but it seemingly opened the floodgate for a bevy of moves that continued even into the month of December.
Four former head coaches left their positions to become assistant coaches at another institution, including Shana Easley, who left Northern Colorado to become the volunteer assistant at Arkansas; Mike Roberts, who left Buffalo to be the pitching coach at Louisiana-Lafayette; Mike Bosch, who departed Syracuse to join Tim Walton’s staff at Florida; and Corey Lyon, who joined the Marshall staff after serving as the head coach at Louisiana-Monroe.
In total, sixty head coaching positions saw a change made this offseason, beginning with Stubbs’ resignation in late April and culminating – at least, to this point in time – with the retirement of Dr. Craig Coleman at Robert Morris in early December.
Eighteen head coaches were given contract extensions this summer, as their respective teams chose to keep their proven leaders around for years to come. That group included a pair of SEC coaches in Arkansas’ Courtney Deifel and Kentucky’s Rachel Lawson, as well as Northwestern’s Kate Drohan and Illinois’ Tyra Perry, among others.
The Carousel was punctuated with almost 200 assistant coaching hirings and moves and nearly thirty head coaching changes at the Division II level.
With sixty teams affected by a head coaching opening and change, just over 25% of Division I teams enter 2019 with a different head coach than at the same time one year ago.
Carousel image via The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. All rights reserved.
