Duke WBB coach steps down

3,367 Views | 15 Replies | Last: 3 yr ago by Adriacus Peratuun
74Bear
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ESPN: Joanne P. McCallie won't return for a 14th season as Duke's women's basketball coach.

McCallie announced her departure in a 6-minute

posted Thursday on the program's Twitter account. She said she was "choosing to step away" as coach, saying she wanted to bring "clarity" instead of uncertainty as she entered the final year of her contract.

"I want to provide an opportunity for change, growth and a sense of security relative to the future of the program," McCallie said, noting she hoped the move would allow the team "to play free without the burden and uncertainty of their coach's future."

McCallie led the Blue Devils to a 330-107 record in her 13 seasons and was a three-time Atlantic Coast Conference coach of the year. Duke won at least a share of the ACC regular-season title four times as well as three ACC Tournament titles. There were also 10 trips to the NCAA Tournament, including four straight trips to the Elite Eight from 2010-13.
DFW Bill
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Best choice is Coach G, would be a popular choice for Duke, she is an excellent coach. This time she would hire the best recruiters possible. Not make the same mistake she made at Texas.

Tina Langley of Rice is on the rise, has top notch recruiting background from Maryland for the ACC. Not a bad backup plan.

Both know what it's like to recruit at a academic powerhouse and win.
whitetrash
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All in all, she was really a one year flash in the pan propelled by Tennessee's colossal collapse in the 2nd half of the 2005 semis. Never made it past the Elite 8 at Duke.
DanaDane
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Hire Mulkey.

Imagine having Coach K and Mulkey as the men's and women's head coaches at the same school.
GrizBear
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DanaDane said:

Hire Mulkey.

Imagine having Coach K and Mulkey as the men's and women's head coaches at the same school.
What is WRONG with you?
DanaDane
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GrizBear said:

DanaDane said:

Hire Mulkey.

Imagine having Coach K and Mulkey as the men's and women's head coaches at the same school.
What is WRONG with you?
They have no chance in hiring Mulkey. I'm pointing out IF they wanted to have the best two coaches in all of basketball, she would be the one. There's a 0.00000000000% chance of Duke being able to hire Mulkey or Mulkey wanting to go there.
SirBearALot
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Besides Coach K retired unless you were thinking that Mulkey would coach the men and coach K as in Karen Aston would coach the women ? Are were you referring to coach Karen from Alabama?
DFW Bill
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Kristy Curry is the Coach of the University of Alabama's women's basketball team.
willtalk
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whitetrash said:

All in all, she was really a one year flash in the pan propelled by Tennessee's colossal collapse in the 2nd half of the 2005 semis. Never made it past the Elite 8 at Duke.
I spent a lot of time on the Duke site from 2009 to 2015. The major problem with the program existed before coach P even got there. It had to do with the negativity behind coach G departure and the fan base blaming the AC instead of G following the money. Coach P really had little chance to succeed at Duke unless she would have totally cleaned house and gotten rid of everyone associated with the previous coach. Too many people surrounding the program either consciously or unconsciously did not want her to succeed. The AD who they felt ran off a coach they loved was gone in a year, but his hire was still there and became the recipient of a degree of hate seldom seen against a coach. The negativity got so bad that it totally destroyed the Duke WCBB web site. It went from the third most posted on WCBB site to a few post a week by the same person. .

That said I am glad she quit. She should have done so long ago because as long as she was there so was the negativity.in the program. I only think she stayed on because she refused to be pushed out.

During an 8 year period, Duke had an unusual amount of injuries to their best players. Chelsea Gray was on heathy for one season. Williams, except for her Frosh season was dealing with a stress facture problem tow. Lexi Jones also spent both her years there injured either all or part of the season. I could go on but these were just the most impactful.

As to only never getting past the final 8, they usually were knocked out by Uconn, who they just did not matchup well against. Another year they were knocked out by a Griner led Baylor. One year they were knocked off by a Stanford team that had both Neka and Cheney. They gave them a good game but were short at guard and Williams was suffering from her stress fracture and would not have been able to play the next game even if they won. The fan base would find every reason to criticize her and never give her credit. The word thing is that they went to other sites constantly saying what a horrible coach and person she was. This certainly did not help to recruit. There was a very vocal faction who made no secret that they wanted to get rid of her at any cost even if it meant the destruction of the program while she was there.

Baylor fans should especially be aware of how fans ( but in her case fans from other teams ) can influence a coach's perception by those who are not close to the program. I must say I was initially influenced by the negative Mulkey crusade.
Chibears2
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As you have pointed out, there are very many fans who would not agree with your take. There were some stories circulating about the poor way McCallie left Michigan State, even before the Duke situation soured so badly. And there were quite a few transfers out of her program who had some unflattering things to say about McCallie, and the athletes were pretty credible sources and the stories were pretty consistent. Now, you could be correct that there were negative feelings around Coach GG's departure, but I do not think everything was fine in Blue Devil land except for disgruntled fans. (McCallie made some negative comments after our championship run against them that seemed to be trying to cast aspersions on Mulkey's recruiting of some of that 2005 team. Made her sound like a sour grapes loser and she lost my respect then.) Follow that up with the way she left MSU, and she was already gaining a bit of a rep in WBB circles. And that was even before her issues with the players... As I said, totally different take from yours.
GarlandBear84
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I'm confused. Who is coach P and the AC?
gone to Tickfaw
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I put Coach P McCallie on the back burner just before halftime of the 2005 final when she told the on court announcer that they needed to shut down number 51. Made her seem either uninformed, unprepared or snarky.

Emily Niemann.
DFW Bill
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Duke informed Gail G last night she was not under consideration for the head coaching job as reported by Michelle Voegel of ESPN. They claimed they were not looking back, but looking forward. Good luck.
TXtoCO
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Never liked her.
willtalk
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DFW Bill said:

Duke informed Gail G last night she was not under consideration for the head coaching job as reported by Michelle Voegel of ESPN. They claimed they were not looking back, but looking forward. Good luck.
The fact that they would not even consider her for the job surely indicates the relationship that existed between her and Duke when she left. It might not have even been her, but one of her assistants who was the source of leaks that created the problem between her and the AD. I sort of suspect it was one who stayed and continued to poison the well. Never the less it created an us against the administration environment that was not professional. It was that environment that carried over to the next coach, with that coach, who was the AD's hire then becoming the target of the fans who were loyal to the coach above the programs hate.

I am not implying that coach P was a likable person, but I know that other coaches have done far worse than she ever was even accused of doing but were never vilified as much by other fans let alone her own program fans. I can tell you from experience that everything she did was put under a microscope and either exaggerated or distorted to make her look bad. Coaches have different styles of coaching and not every player will fit in. She was old school and players now are a different breed. But that certainly did not justify the vitriol she was subjected to by a very vocal portion of the Duke fans who ended up vial their tactics expanding there numbers.

Look, I had no dog in this fight. I was no fan of the coach but am just giving my perspective based on what i observed in the time I followed the team. I have never seen such bias and craziness from any other group of fans in my entire time on boards. She should have quit a long time ago. The biggest mistake she made was not getting rid of every holdover assistant coach from the previous staff. Not doing that she set the stage for failure. You have to beat the grass to get all the snakes out before walking through .
Task Force 2015
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Celtics Blog indicates that Kara Lawson,assistant coach(and former Tenn.point guard for the Lady Vols)is a leading candidate for the Duke job.
Adriacus Peratuun
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The hidden issue with hiring Kara Lawson is creating the inherent attachment to her husband Damien Barling [a Sacramento sports "shock jock"]. Likely to be less of an issue at Duke than it would have been at Tennessee. But any hire of a "highly visible" employee with a "highly visible" spouse who makes a living by stirring controversy is at best worrisome and at worst a ticking time bomb. Generally, we know little about coaches spouses unless something bad occurs. Hiring a coach whose spouse's job is to drive ratings by shocking listeners is assuming a fairly substantial risk.
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