KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — In October, prior to Kim Caldwell had coached a recreation for Tennessee, she sat on an orange sofa in her place of business and attempted to get at ease.
This was once each a bodily and philosophical problem for the first-year Woman Volunteers educator on the age. At 5 months pregnant along with her first kid, there have been sure realities about what “comfortable” would possibly seem like transferring ahead for her, and he or she neglected the caffeine that she had giving up months previous (particularly at this level within the 12 months when group prep may seem endless).
However there was once a deeper query: How does Caldwell — who had coached simply 33 Category I basketball video games — get at ease able as soon as held via some of the impressive population in girls’s basketball? And no longer simply that, however how does she progress when this system had fallen from its earlier heights to a middling field, which in Woman Vols-speak, is as unholy as irrelevance? As anyone who had coached in opposition to simply 3 energy convention warring parties, how would she get a hold of the solutions to get this program again to the usual that Pat Summitt poised?
Caldwell, 36, grew up when Tennessee and UConn dominated girls’s faculty basketball. Summitt and Geno Auriemma — their depth and their contention — needful during the noise to produce the ones epic matchups a part of the mainstream wearing tradition.
“It made people talk about women’s sports. It made people talk about women’s basketball,” Caldwell stated. “It was such an incredible time.”
At her AAU practices in West Virginia, Caldwell’s groups had been break up no longer via Group A as opposed to Group B however via the Woman Vols as opposed to the Huskies. At a match as a highschool participant, she regarded into the stands and noticed Summitt and Auriemma sitting then to each other comparing recruits and next, strolling time Summitt within the hallway.
She by no means idea — whilst not too long ago as a 12 months in the past — that she can be training in opposition to Auriemma in that contention recreation, or throwing on an orange pullover and strolling into tournaments to engage identical to Summitt. Terminating summer time, as she ready for one such match in Chicago, she needed to give herself a pep communicate prior to strolling into the gymnasium — “Here we go. You’ve got bright orange on. Hold your head up high. Get in there,” she instructed herself — as she questioned if any avid gamers would react to her the best way she as soon as needed to Peak.
In conjunction with UConn and Stanford, Tennessee is tie to a novel educator like virtually incorrect alternative program in girls’s faculty basketball — or faculty sports activities. So even at the days when she doesn’t power time the nine-foot statue of Summitt outdoor Thompson-Boling Enviornment on her approach to Tennessee group of workers workplaces, she nonetheless walks via a pitcher show of the 8 nationwide championship trophies that Summitt gained. “The Summitt” is painted in script at the ground the place Caldwell now coaches her house video games. And next there’s the Tennessee orange. A colour that Summitt made iconic.
“I will never be Pat Summitt. Nobody can, but I will strive every day to be someone she would be proud of.”
Brandnew Woman Vols head educator Kim Caldwell at the legacy of this system she is ready to supremacy. pic.twitter.com/yMZCs4M2xe
— Karthik Venkataraman (@KarthikV_) April 9, 2024
In her retain, Summitt wrote, “I remember every player — every single one — who wore the Tennessee orange, a shade that our rivals hate, a bold, aggravating color. … But to us, the color is a flag of pride, because it identifies us as Lady Vols and therefore as women of an unmistakable type. Fighters.”
Since Summitt retired in 2012, Tennessee has been preventing. First, to stay on the peak, the place Summitt had led this system. And next, to secure relevance. Each endeavors had been most commonly disasters, despite the fact that this system retained some status merely on account of its historical past.
Now Caldwell, who had one season of training Category I basketball below her belt when she took the activity in April, holds the reins to probably the most game’s maximum impressive systems.
“There’s an enormous weight that comes with it, and I knew that going into it. You talk about the history, what Pat Summitt did for sports in general, what she did for the state of Tennessee, what she did for basketball,” Caldwell stated. “Where basketball is now. … I don’t know that we would be here without her.”
However over the terminating few seasons, as girls’s basketball has grown increasingly frequent, Tennessee has been surprisingly lacking from the wrinkle. As the sport strikes ahead, Tennessee hopes that its most up-to-date (surprising) rent way the Woman Vols don’t leave out the then bankruptcy, too.
The miracle across the girls’s basketball international was once palpable terminating April when Tennessee fired Kellie Harper. Many assumed she would get a minimum of some other season to struggle and switch across the program.
However any miracle round Harper’s firing paled when in comparison to the response when Tennessee introduced its fresh head educator not up to a while next: a fast “who?”
Caldwell had simply completed her first season at Marshall. Regardless that she had led the mid-major to the NCAA Event for the 1st age since 1997 (and simply the second one age in program historical past), it misplaced to four-seed Virginia Tech via 43. Prior to Marshall, Caldwell had spent seven seasons as the top educator at her alma mater, Category II Glenville Environment College in West Virginia.
The minimum Category I and gear convention revel in was once noticeable, but it surely was once simply as evident that she had incorrect ties to Summitt and even the shape of Tennessee. This system stayed inside the Summitt tree then she retired, hiring Tennessee local Holly Warlick, an established laborer and previous participant below Summitt, and next, in 2019, became to Harper, a Tennessee local, Summitt protégé and loved alum. Neither returned this system to its elite perch, failing to achieve the Ultimate 4 for greater than a decade.
Recruits had by no means witnessed Tennessee reach the best way this system traditionally had, despite the fact that their folks remembered. Getting this rent proper was once impressive; each and every passing month apparently moved this system farther from competition.
For the reason that Harper was once fired with 4 years left on her agreement and he or she had gained an extension from Tennessee athletic director Danny White only a 12 months previous, maximum within the trade assumed the sort of drastic advance indicated that White deliberate to swing for the fences. Harper earned $1.1 million a 12 months — making her the twelfth highest-paid educator in girls’s faculty hoops — so if the Woman Vols upped that wage even somewhat, they might most probably entice a high-profile educator to Knoxville. Tennessee alum and Duke educator Kara Lawson and Las Vegas Aces educator Becky Hammon, who had simply gained two WNBA titles, had been regarded as population White will have to pursue. USC educator Lindsay Gottlieb was once a number of the chief names on media training lists. A document attached Tennessee’s search firm to Indiana coach Teri Moren.
The names being floated had been esteemed inside girls’s basketball. Lawson, the one UT alum lately training at a towering stage, was once the one Summitt connection within the team.
From Knoxville, White felt a shoot clear of his predecessors, who had rented from the Summitt tree.
“We had already gone through those chapters twice,” he stated. “If there was any pressure at all, it was probably more so to go outside (the tree) and try something different. I don’t know if that was real or something I invented myself, but I certainly didn’t feel pressure to stay inside of coach Summitt’s tree.”
In administrative circles, White’s selection was once surprising, however his forms weren’t unexpected.
Because the Buffalo AD, he rented males’s basketball educator Nate Oats, who had most effective two years of school revel in as an laborer and had most effective been a head educator of a highschool boy’s basketball group. (Alabama rented Oats 5 seasons next.) White additionally rented Lance Leipold as Buffalo’s soccer educator regardless of Leipold’s earlier seven seasons off everybody’s radar at a Category III college. (Kansas rented him 5 years next.) At UCF in 2018, White rented Josh Heupel. Many assumed Heupel’s occupation had dead-ended 3 years previous and had been stunned he was once touchdown a heavy activity. Upcoming 3 bowl recreation appearances with UCF, White introduced Heupel to Tennessee, which is within the Faculty Soccer Playoff this season because the Negative. 7 seed.
“He’s kind of got a Midas touch,” Leipold instructed The Athletic in 2022.
Hiring for the Tennessee girls’s activity is its personal beast. His conversations with Caldwell reminded him of speaking to Heupel. He preferred that her gadget was once other and thrilling, using a full-court urgent protection that compelled handovers, an offense that took early 3s and hockey-style substitutions that stored avid gamers’ legs untouched all over the video games. Her pattern measurement at Marshall was once little, however this system had long gone from .500 in convention play games to successful the league identify in her first 12 months.
“I think more frequently in different sports, at the highest level, people are seeing,” White stated, “that coaching is coaching.”
The verdict made something cloudless: Hiring Caldwell may just produce White glance prescient — and extra importantly, the advance may just go back Tennessee to the peak of ladies’s basketball — if it really works out. If it doesn’t, it most probably will probably be regarded as an noticeable and avoidable misstep in caretaking this system.
For the 1st age in a protracted age, extra visible and scrutiny are on Tennessee. No longer on account of towering expectancies, however as a result of everybody needs to understand: Is Caldwell the solution to the post-Summitt conundrum?
Kim Caldwell is the 1st educator rented since Pat Summitt’s resignation not to be from her training tree. (Bryan Lynn / Icon Sportswire by the use of Getty Photographs)
When Caldwell’s agent, Brian Stanchak, known as her on April 1 to inform her Tennessee’s seek company was once gauging her passion, Caldwell questioned if it was once an April Idiot’s Date comic story.
“Honestly. I was thinking, ‘Anyone but me. There’s got to be people that have more experience under their belt or an assistant,’” Caldwell stated. “I mean, it’s been one year (in Division I).”
Caldwell took a decision with Tennessee most commonly for the revel in of interviewing for a chief place. She was once actually satisfied at Marshall. She and her husband, Justin, had simply purchased their dream space — a four-bedroom customized house on a spacious dozen with an condominium above the storage for her mother.
Alternative mid-major and gear convention jobs had arise all over her head training occupation, and her reaction was once all the time the similar: “I love winning and I love my players. I don’t love everything else that comes with coaching, right?” she stated. “The lower level you are, the more basketball you usually get to do. That’s as honest, as transparent as I can be about it.”
However the Tennessee activity was once other.
With a twister blackmail in West Virginia hitting proper prior to her scheduled interview slot, she huddled in a closet, instead than suspending on account of the inclement climate. She sweated during the interview, no longer as a result of she was once frightened however for the reason that closet was once so stuffy. When it ended, she thanked Tennessee for the dialog and assumed that will be the finish of it.
But if White sought after her to seek advice from Knoxville, it all started to sink in that she if truth be told had a shot.
“Do I stay here because I love it and I’m happy, or do I take the best job that I’m ever going to get offered right now?” Caldwell stated. “Because I can work for 80 more years, and I will never get offered a job of this magnitude again.”
Caldwell was once stunned at how at ease she felt in Knoxville, and inclined towards a sure if an do business in got here.
However there have been nonetheless detractors. Her mother requested why she would reduce a shape the place she was once loved to educator someplace she wouldn’t be. ”They’re gonna be like: Who is that this? Why is she now our educator?” Caldwell stated her mother cautioned.
She instructed her mother the similar factor she had instructed her avid gamers: Don’t reduce any regrets at the ground.
Danny White when he rented educator Kim Caldwell: “For fans, if you like what you’re seeing inside of Neyland Stadium in terms of the amount of points we score, I think you are going to like what you see on the basketball floor.”
— Josh Ward (@Josh_Ward) December 14, 2024
So when White known as, she authorized. However she additionally knew the pressures that will come at Tennessee. An antsy fan bottom, a progressive athletic branch, the ladies’s basketball international questioning how she may just resolve a puzzle that had confirmed inconceivable for alternative Category II and mid-major coaches.
“I think you just have to bet on yourself and say, ‘Hey, you’re gonna be uncomfortable for a while, but I was just uncomfortable for six months. Yes, I can be uncomfortable again,’” Caldwell stated. “You bet on your own success.”
Each and every season, Caldwell helps to keep a pocket book on her group, what’s going proper and incorrect, and, most significantly, how she’s feeling. Even all over a season when the drive is so other and the level is such a lot larger, she unearths constant tendencies in what she writes and feels from 12 months to 12 months.
“I’m miserable,” she stated with fun in mid-December. “So I’m right on track.”
That is the way it is going for Caldwell’s gadget: In November and maximum of December, she’s fatal. She by no means needs to speak basketball at Thanksgiving. By means of Christmas? She may well be able to speak hoops as issues generally get started coming in combination.
With the Woman Vols sitting at 8-0, a number of the early questions had been spoke back. Tennessee picked up vital wins over Florida Environment and Iowa previous this occasion, however Caldwell is aware of SEC play games will probably be other.
House attendance is the perfect in Knoxville because the 2015-16 season, and recruiting took off straight away with Caldwell. She’s already picked up two top-25 avid gamers within the 2025 elegance, homogeneous a presen alike to Summitt’s in her ultimate 5 years. By means of comparability, Warlick signed 10 in seven seasons, and Harper signed only one in her 5 categories from 2020-24.
“I was pretty shocked at first. And then I kind of told myself, ‘Why not?’ It’s not like the program was a national powerhouse,” stated ESPN analyst Andraya Carter, a member of Summitt’s ultimate recruiting elegance at Tennessee. “I had a lot of reservations, but I started seeing some of the (recruits) she was getting. I just was like, ‘Let’s go.’ The system that she’s running is literally one where you can’t hesitate, so for me, as an alum, not an analyst, I’m not going to hesitate either. … Let’s see what she’s got.”
Caldwell’s Woman Vols supremacy the population with 98 issues in keeping with recreation and switch over warring parties a nationally absolute best 30 instances a recreation. Terminating season, Marshall completed within the peak 5 nationally in each divisions — in order that phase feels lovely ordinary.
simply getting began. pic.twitter.com/7cJKbcFgjb
— Woman Vols Basketball (@LadyVol_Hoops) December 14, 2024
However Caldwell’s nonetheless getting old to a couple variations. At Marshall, she had 3 assistants, one graduate laborer and two managers. At Tennessee, she has a group of workers of 13 and 9 managers. She by no means had a video coordinator prior to coming to Knoxville; now apply and recreation photos are able and clipped for her just about via the age apply is over. She stated she realized extra all over her first 3 weeks in Knoxville than a whole season at Marshall.
With SEC play games across the nook, the hardest exams are nonetheless forward of the Woman Vols, however with every win, the argument grows that White made the correct advance and Caldwell might be the surprising solution at Tennessee. Will that be plethora to deliver this system again to its earlier heights? Caldwell’s assured plethora to guess on herself and her group.
“You don’t turn it down,” Caldwell stated. “And then you spend every day trying to make sure that they realize they didn’t make a mistake.”
(Representation: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Pictures: Bryan Lynn / Icon Sportswire, Damian Strohmeyer / Sports activities Illustrated by the use of Getty Photographs, Donald Web page / Getty Photographs)
