[BostonCard]

In football, Wlat Harris had been a successful coach at Pitt, taking them to a BCS bowl, and then was a miserable failure at Stanford.

Steve Kerr had zero head coaching experience when he took on the Warriors job.  He seemed to have done OK for himself.  In women’s basketball, Becky Hammon did ok for herself after becoming a first time head coach for the Las Vegas Aces after being an assistant for the San Antonio Spurs.

If we are talking women’s college basketball specifically, Jan Jensen looks to have successfully navigated the career assistant to head coach transition.  In fact, the parallels to Kate Paye are pretty striking.  Like Paye, she played for the coach (Lisa Bluder) who would later hire her as an assistant.  Like Paye, she turned down an opportunity to become a head coach and remained Bluder’s assistant for many years (in fact, more than Paye), rising to become associate head coach.  Like Paye, Jensen was promoted to head coach when the all-time winningest coach in the program’s history retired.  Like Paye, the team lost a significant amount of talent (in Jensen’s case, Caitlin Clark).  Unlike Paye, she led her team to a NCAA tournament team last year (and will again this year).

BC

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Add, I forgot about Gail Goestenkors as an example that hiring a “proven” head coach that doesn’t always work.  She built DUke up to be a perennial national title contender and had a 418-101 winning record, with two national title runner ups and two other final four appearances.  She was a super splashy hire at Texas, but she went 102-64, and though she made it to the tournament every year, she never finished better than fourth in the Big-12, and only once made it out of the first round of the tournament (her first year).

BC

[BostonCard]

In football, Wlat Harris had been a successful coach at Pitt, taking them to a BCS bowl, and then was a miserable failure at Stanford.

Steve Kerr had zero head coaching experience when he took on the Warriors job.  He seemed to have done OK for himself.  In women’s basketball, Becky Hammon did ok for herself after becoming a first time head coach for the Las Vegas Aces after being an assistant for the San Antonio Spurs.

If we are talking women’s college basketball specifically, Jan Jensen looks to have successfully navigated the career assistant to head coach transition.  In fact, the parallels to Kate Paye are pretty striking.  Like Paye, she played for the coach (Lisa Bluder) who would later hire her as an assistant.  Like Paye, she turned down an opportunity to become a head coach and remained Bluder’s assistant for many years (in fact, more than Paye), rising to become associate head coach.  Like Paye, Jensen was promoted to head coach when the all-time winningest coach in the program’s history retired.  Like Paye, the team lost a significant amount of talent (in Jensen’s case, Caitlin Clark).  Unlike Paye, she led her team to a NCAA tournament team last year (and will again this year).

BC

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Add, I forgot about Gail Goestenkors as an example that hiring a “proven” head coach that doesn’t always work.  She built DUke up to be a perennial national title contender and had a 418-101 winning record, with two national title runner ups and two other final four appearances.  She was a super splashy hire at Texas, but she went 102-64, and though she made it to the tournament every year, she never finished better than fourth in the Big-12, and only once made it out of the first round of the tournament (her first year).

BC