Generally, a splash hire is supposed to be somebody who generates headlines the minute they’re introduced as head coach. Danny White has always taken a different approach to splash hires though, and it’s that approach that led to the Tennessee Lady Vols new head coach.
Kim Caldwell was announced as UT’s next coach Sunday afternoon after one season with the Marshall Thundering Herd, where she won the Sun Belt Regular Season and Tournament Championship and went 26-7. She replaces Kellie Harper, who coached Rocky Top for five years.
Before Marshall, Caldwell spent seven years with the Glenville State Pioneers, where she played from 2007 to 2011. There, she went 191-24 with six Mountain East Regular Season titles, four MEC Tournament titles, two Final Four appearances and the Division II national championship in 2022.
So how does Caldwell epitomizes White’s hiring approach? Well, just like he did with Josh Heupel in 2021 and with so many of his other hires while athletic director of the Buffalo Bulls and UCF Knights, White goes for coaches who can make a splash early with their results on the court/field.
For White, it’s not important to win the press conference. It’s also not practical to wait for a coach to be successful three years down the road. White’s sole focus has always been a coach who can win over fans with their style of play and their actual performance their first year on the job.
That’s exactly what White got in Heupel.
In both of her previous stops, Caldwell immediately took the program to new heights. At Glenville State, Caldwell inherited a team that was 17-12 the year before. She then went 24-6 and made the NCAA Division II Tournament, winning the MEC Regular Season championship.
This past year, she took over a Marshall program that was 17-14 the year before. We already mentioned what she was able to do there. That type of early success is what’s necessary to inject a splash back into a program that is among the most storied in history.
It’s not just wins, though, that White goes for when he makes a splash. Style of play in the process is a huge part. When he hired Heupel, the up-tempo offense Vol fans saw immediately got them on board. The same was true when he hired Scott Frost and Heupel at UCF and Nate Oats at Buffalo.
Well, Caldwell is all about offense and entertainment. Marshall was fourth in the nation in scoring this past year at over 85 points per game. Her team was first in three-point attempts, third in three-pointers made and third in steals per game. Simply put, Caldwell is all about letting it fly and playing up-tempo.
After watching the Tennessee Lady Vols slide as a program with a commitment to the Pat Summitt way, which heavily emphasized defense and rebounding, White has decided to take the program in a completely opposite direction. Beyond just breaking from Summitt, he’s breaking from the brand.
However, White has once again made a hire that should equate to early success with a fun style of play, which will draw fans back. Making it at a time when the coverage of women’s basketball is only increasing exponentially should be a huge advantage.
To this point, Caldwell’s track record is almost all West Virginia. Beyond Glenville State and Marshall, she was an assistant with the Ohio Valley Fighting Scots, who are in Vienna, W. Va., but she did spend three years with the Sacramento State Hornets in California as an assistant, though. Most importantly, the Tennessee Lady Vols got a winner.
