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Just over a week after Sharon Versyp resigned as head coach of the University of Maine women’s basketball team, the search for a new head coach is well underway. With the University’s recent search for a new President complete, the school is now focused on filling another high-profile position.
The position of head women’s basketball coach at UMaine has become very high profile. Joanne McCallie’s efforts as head coach from 1992 to 2000 helped turn UMaine into a winner.
When Versyp arrived in the spring of 2000, she inherited a team that had been to six straight NCAA tournaments. After a disappointing 12-16 transition season in her first year, Versyp turned UMaine back into a winner, and went 16-12 in her second season. In 2003, UMaine won the America East regular season crown, something they would earn again in 2004 and 2005.
“She stepped in at a time when the program had really been built to a wonderful level,” said UMaine athletic director Patrick Nero of Versyp, “and she sustained it.”
Versyp, who has a 98-51 Division I head coaching record, left for Indiana where she was named head women’s basketball coach.
With their search for a new coach ongoing, Nero is in the process of narrowing the field of over 40 possible candidates down to five.
“I want to bring in someone that can coach and teach, and continue the winning,” he said. “That’s important.”
Nero, who was hired as athletic director in 2003, has not been through the process of finding a new women’s basketball coach. He has hired a new men’s basketball coach, and a women’s ice hockey coach as well as an interim softball coach, but in each case he promoted an assistant at UMaine to be head coach. The only coach that Nero has named from outside the UMaine community is Lynn Theehs, who was named head volleyball coach in July of 2004.
Nero has not released the names of possible coaches, but one former UMaine player has offered hers. Former Black Bear standout and WNBA player Cindy Blodgett has expressed interest in becoming UMaine’s next head coach.
Blodgett, who led UMaine to four straight America East Championships, would be a popular choice among Black Bear fans. Nero, however, has said he wants someone with experience as a coach.
“We need to find a coach that’s been in a program that’s proven to be successful from a wins and losses standpoint,” said Nero when the search began.
Blodgett was an assistant coach at Boston University for one season, while she was playing for the Sacramento Monarchs in the WNBA. Blodgett is 29 and would be a young head coach, but not as young as McCallie who was named head coach at UMaine when she was 26.
Nero has not made any names on his list of candidates public. Instead he continues his diligent search for UMaine’s next coach with his mind set on finding the right coach for the program.
UMaine has had success with finding coaches in the past. In its 29-year history, the women’s basketball program at UMaine has had just two losing seasons. The first came in McCallie’s first season and the second came in Versyp’s first season.
Eilene Fox, the program’s first head coach, compiled a 115-50 record in eight seasons. Peter Gavett coached the Black Bears for five years and had a 106-37 record. Trish Roberts, now the head coach at Binghamton, another America East team, coached UMaine for four seasons and compiled an 82-32 record, while McCallie holds the record for most wins with a 142-73 record in her eight seasons.
Nero would like UMaine’s next head coach to carry on the tradition of winning.
“Women’s basketball has been very successful here,” said Nero. “This is a program that everyone on this campus and everyone in this state looks to lead. Women’s basketball has been a spectacular program for us.”
