KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — In October, earlier than Kim Caldwell had coached a sport for Tennessee, she sat on an orange sofa in her workplace and tried to get snug.
This was each a bodily and philosophical problem for the first-year Girl Volunteers coach on the time. At 5 months pregnant along with her first little one, there have been sure realities about what “snug” would possibly seem like shifting ahead for her, and she or he missed the caffeine that she had given up months earlier (particularly at this level within the yr when staff prep may appear unending).
However there was a deeper query: How does Caldwell — who had coached simply 33 Division I basketball video games — get snug able as soon as held by one of the crucial vital folks in girls’s basketball? And never simply that, however how does she proceed when this system had fallen from its earlier heights to a middling territory, which in Girl Vols-speak, is as unhealthy as irrelevance? As somebody who had coached in opposition to simply three energy convention opponents, how would she provide you with the solutions to get this program again to the usual that Pat Summitt set?
Caldwell, 36, grew up when Tennessee and UConn dominated girls’s faculty basketball. Summitt and Geno Auriemma — their depth and their rivalry — broke by way of the noise to make these epic matchups a part of the mainstream sporting tradition.
“It made folks discuss girls’s sports activities. It made folks discuss girls’s basketball,” Caldwell mentioned. “It was such an unimaginable time.”
At her AAU practices in West Virginia, Caldwell’s groups had been break up up not by Group A versus Group B however by the Girl Vols versus the Huskies. At a event as a highschool participant, she appeared into the stands and noticed Summitt and Auriemma sitting subsequent to 1 one other evaluating recruits and later, strolling previous Summitt within the hallway.
She by no means thought — at the same time as lately as a yr in the past — that she could be teaching in opposition to Auriemma in that rivalry sport, or throwing on an orange pullover and strolling into tournaments to recruit identical to Summitt. Final summer time, as she ready for one such event in Chicago, she needed to give herself a pep discuss earlier than strolling into the gymnasium — “Right here we go. You’ve obtained brilliant orange on. Maintain your head up excessive. Get in there,” she advised herself — as she questioned if any gamers would react to her the best way she as soon as needed to Summit.
Together with UConn and Stanford, Tennessee is tied to a singular coach like virtually no different program in girls’s faculty basketball — or faculty sports activities. So even on the times when she doesn’t drive previous the nine-foot statue of Summitt exterior Thompson-Boling Enviornment on her technique to Tennessee employees places of work, she nonetheless walks by a glass show of the eight nationwide championship trophies that Summitt received. “The Summitt” is painted in script on the ground the place Caldwell now coaches her dwelling video games. After which there’s the Tennessee orange. A coloration that Summitt made iconic.
“I’ll by no means be Pat Summitt. No person can, however I’ll attempt each day to be somebody she could be pleased with.”
New Girl Vols head coach Kim Caldwell on the legacy of this system she is about to steer. pic.twitter.com/yMZCs4M2xe
— Karthik Venkataraman (@KarthikV_) April 9, 2024
In her guide, Summitt wrote, “I bear in mind each participant — each single one — who wore the Tennessee orange, a shade that our rivals hate, a daring, aggravating coloration. … However to us, the colour is a flag of pleasure, as a result of it identifies us as Girl Vols and subsequently as girls of an unmistakable kind. Fighters.”
Since Summitt retired in 2012, Tennessee has been preventing. First, to stay on the high, the place Summitt had led this system. After which, to retain relevance. Each endeavors had been largely failures, although this system retained some status merely due to its historical past.
Now Caldwell, who had one season of teaching Division I basketball underneath her belt when she took the job in April, holds the reins to one of many sport’s most vital applications.
“There’s an infinite weight that comes with it, and I knew that going into it. You discuss in regards to the historical past, what Pat Summitt did for sports activities on the whole, what she did for the state of Tennessee, what she did for basketball,” Caldwell mentioned. “The place basketball is now. … I don’t know that we’d be right here with out her.”
However over the previous couple of seasons, as girls’s basketball has grown increasingly more common, Tennessee has been unusually lacking from the fold. As the sport strikes ahead, Tennessee hopes that its most up-to-date (surprising) rent means the Girl Vols don’t miss the subsequent chapter, too.
The shock across the girls’s basketball world was palpable final April when Tennessee fired Kellie Harper. Many assumed she would get a minimum of one other season to try to flip across the program.
However any shock round Harper’s firing paled when in comparison with the response when Tennessee introduced its new head coach lower than per week later: a swift “who?”
Caldwell had simply completed her first season at Marshall. Although she had led the mid-major to the NCAA Match for the primary time since 1997 (and simply the second time in program historical past), it misplaced to four-seed Virginia Tech by 43. Earlier than Marshall, Caldwell had spent seven seasons as the pinnacle coach at her alma mater, Division II Glenville State College in West Virginia.
The minimal Division I and energy convention expertise was apparent, but it surely was simply as obvious that she had no ties to Summitt and even the state of Tennessee. This system stayed inside the Summitt tree after she retired, hiring Tennessee native Holly Warlick, a longtime assistant and former participant underneath Summitt, after which, in 2019, turned to Harper, a Tennessee native, Summitt protégé and beloved alum. Neither returned this system to its elite perch, failing to succeed in the Last 4 for greater than a decade.
Recruits had by no means witnessed Tennessee obtain the best way this system traditionally had, although their dad and mom remembered. Getting this rent proper was vital; each passing day seemingly moved this system farther from competition.
On condition that Harper was fired with 4 years left on her contract and she or he had obtained an extension from Tennessee athletic director Danny White only a yr earlier, most within the business assumed such a drastic transfer indicated that White deliberate to swing for the fences. Harper earned $1.1 million a yr — making her the twelfth highest-paid coach in girls’s faculty hoops — so if the Girl Vols upped that wage even a bit, they may possible lure a high-profile coach to Knoxville. Tennessee alum and Duke coach Kara Lawson and Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon, who had simply received two WNBA titles, had been thought-about folks White ought to pursue. USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb was among the many outstanding names on media teaching lists. A report linked Tennessee’s search agency to Indiana coach Teri Moren.
The names being floated had been esteemed inside girls’s basketball. Lawson, the one UT alum at the moment teaching at a excessive stage, was the one Summitt connection within the group.
From Knoxville, White felt a draw back from his predecessors, who had employed from the Summitt tree.
“We had already gone by way of these chapters twice,” he mentioned. “If there was any strain in any respect, it was most likely extra so to go exterior (the tree) and check out one thing totally different. I don’t know if that was actual or one thing I invented myself, however I actually didn’t really feel strain to remain inside coach Summitt’s tree.”
In administrative circles, White’s alternative was surprising, however his strategies weren’t shocking.
Because the Buffalo AD, he employed males’s basketball coach Nate Oats, who had solely two years of school expertise as an assistant and had solely been a head coach of a highschool boy’s basketball staff. (Alabama employed Oats 5 seasons later.) White additionally employed Lance Leipold as Buffalo’s soccer coach regardless of Leipold’s earlier seven seasons off everybody’s radar at a Division III college. (Kansas employed him 5 years later.) At UCF in 2018, White employed Josh Heupel. Many assumed Heupel’s profession had dead-ended three years earlier and had been shocked he was touchdown an enormous job. After three bowl sport appearances with UCF, White introduced Heupel to Tennessee, which is within the Faculty Soccer Playoff this season because the No. 7 seed.
“He’s type of obtained a Midas contact,” Leipold advised The Athletic in 2022.
Hiring for the Tennessee girls’s job is its personal beast. His conversations with Caldwell reminded him of speaking to Heupel. He favored that her system was totally different and thrilling, using a full-court urgent protection that pressured turnovers, an offense that took early 3s and hockey-style substitutions that stored gamers’ legs recent all through the video games. Her pattern dimension at Marshall was small, however this system had gone from .500 in convention play to profitable the league title in her first yr.
“I feel extra continuously in several sports activities, on the highest stage, individuals are seeing,” White mentioned, “that teaching is teaching.”
The choice made one factor clear: Hiring Caldwell may make White look prescient — and extra importantly, the transfer may return Tennessee to the highest of ladies’s basketball — if it really works out. If it doesn’t, it possible might be thought-about an apparent and avoidable misstep in caretaking this system.
For the primary time in a very long time, extra eyes and scrutiny are on Tennessee. Not due to excessive expectations, however as a result of everybody needs to know: Is Caldwell the reply to the post-Summitt conundrum?
Kim Caldwell is the primary coach employed since Pat Summitt’s retirement to not be from her teaching tree. (Bryan Lynn / Icon Sportswire through Getty Photos)
When Caldwell’s agent, Brian Stanchak, referred to as her on April 1 to inform her Tennessee’s search agency was gauging her curiosity, Caldwell questioned if it was an April Idiot’s Day joke.
“Truthfully. I used to be pondering, ‘Anybody however me. There’s obtained to be those that have extra expertise underneath their belt or an assistant,’” Caldwell mentioned. “I imply, it’s been one yr (in Division I).”
Caldwell took a name with Tennessee largely for the expertise of interviewing for a outstanding place. She was genuinely glad at Marshall. She and her husband, Justin, had simply purchased their dream home — a four-bedroom customized dwelling on a spacious lot with an house above the storage for her mother.
Different mid-major and energy convention jobs had come up throughout her head teaching profession, and her response was at all times the identical: “I like profitable and I like my gamers. I don’t love every part else that comes with teaching, proper?” she mentioned. “The decrease stage you’re, the extra basketball you often get to do. That’s as sincere, as clear as I could be about it.”
However the Tennessee job was totally different.
With a twister warning in West Virginia hitting proper earlier than her scheduled interview slot, she huddled in a closet, fairly than suspending due to the inclement climate. She sweated by way of the interview, not as a result of she was nervous however as a result of the closet was so stuffy. When it ended, she thanked Tennessee for the dialog and assumed that may be the tip of it.
However when White needed her to go to Knoxville, it started to sink in that she truly had a shot.
“Do I keep right here as a result of I like it and I’m glad, or do I take the very best job that I’m ever going to get supplied proper now?” Caldwell mentioned. “As a result of I can work for 80 extra years, and I’ll by no means get supplied a job of this magnitude once more.”
Caldwell was shocked at how snug she felt in Knoxville, and leaned towards a sure if a suggestion got here.
However there have been nonetheless detractors. Her mother requested why she would go away a state the place she was beloved to teach someplace she wouldn’t be. ”They’re gonna be like: Who is that this? Why is she now our coach?” Caldwell mentioned her mother cautioned.
She advised her mother the identical factor she had advised her gamers: Don’t go away any regrets on the ground.
Danny White when he employed coach Kim Caldwell: “For followers, in case you like what you’re seeing inside Neyland Stadium by way of the quantity of factors we rating, I feel you’ll like what you see on the basketball ground.” https://t.co/Wmq8BFmfiy
— Josh Ward (@Josh_Ward) December 14, 2024
So when White referred to as, she accepted. However she additionally knew the pressures that may come at Tennessee. An antsy fan base, a motivated athletic division, the ladies’s basketball world questioning how she may clear up a puzzle that had confirmed not possible for different Division II and mid-major coaches.
“I feel you simply need to guess on your self and say, ‘Hey, you’re gonna be uncomfortable for some time, however I used to be simply uncomfortable for six months. Sure, I could be uncomfortable once more,’” Caldwell mentioned. “You guess by yourself success.”
Each season, Caldwell retains a pocket book on her staff, what’s going proper and mistaken, and, most significantly, how she’s feeling. Even throughout a season when the strain is so totally different and the stage is a lot larger, she finds constant traits in what she writes and feels from yr to yr.
“I’m depressing,” she mentioned with fun in mid-December. “So I’m proper on observe.”
That is the way it goes for Caldwell’s system: In November and most of December, she’s depressing. She by no means needs to speak basketball at Thanksgiving. By Christmas? She may be prepared to speak hoops as issues often begin coming collectively.
With the Girl Vols sitting at 8-0, a couple of of the early questions have been answered. Tennessee picked up important wins over Florida State and Iowa earlier this month, however Caldwell is aware of SEC play might be totally different.
Residence attendance is the very best in Knoxville because the 2015-16 season, and recruiting took off instantly with Caldwell. She’s already picked up two top-25 gamers within the 2025 class, matching a tempo near Summitt’s in her closing 5 years. By comparability, Warlick signed 10 in seven seasons, and Harper signed only one in her 5 courses from 2020-24.
“I used to be fairly shocked at first. After which I type of advised myself, ‘Why not?’ It’s not like this system was a nationwide powerhouse,” mentioned ESPN analyst Andraya Carter, a member of Summitt’s closing recruiting class at Tennessee. “I had loads of reservations, however I began seeing among the (recruits) she was getting. I simply was like, ‘Let’s go.’ The system that she’s working is actually one the place you’ll be able to’t hesitate, so for me, as an alum, not an analyst, I’m not going to hesitate both. … Let’s see what she’s obtained.”
Caldwell’s Girl Vols lead the nation with 98 factors per sport and switch over opponents a nationally finest 30 instances a sport. Final season, Marshall completed within the high 5 nationally in each classes — in order that half feels fairly acquainted.
simply getting began. pic.twitter.com/7cJKbcFgjb
— Girl Vols Basketball (@LadyVol_Hoops) December 14, 2024
However Caldwell’s nonetheless getting used to some variations. At Marshall, she had three assistants, one graduate assistant and two managers. At Tennessee, she has a employees of 13 and 9 managers. She by no means had a video coordinator earlier than coming to Knoxville; now follow and sport footage are prepared and clipped for her almost by the point follow is over. She mentioned she realized extra throughout her first three weeks in Knoxville than a complete season at Marshall.
With SEC play across the nook, the hardest assessments are nonetheless forward of the Girl Vols, however with every win, the argument grows that White made the fitting transfer and Caldwell might be the surprising reply at Tennessee. Will that be sufficient to deliver this system again to its earlier heights? Caldwell’s assured sufficient to guess on herself and her staff.
“You don’t flip it down,” Caldwell mentioned. “And you then spend each day attempting to be sure that they understand they didn’t make a mistake.”
(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Images: Bryan Lynn / Icon Sportswire, Damian Strohmeyer / Sports activities Illustrated through Getty Photos, Donald Web page / Getty Photos)