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Re: Dawley out, new coach ?

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2016 9:52 am
by MJatUM
Old Cage wrote:
Berkman wrote:Shouldn't we just shut this topic down and start a new one for the new coach? How about it Mike?
Berkman - You can do that anytime you want.
Just edit the title of the topic, similarly to what has been done recently in the Men's Hoops and Hockey sections. It's better to keep all things related to the coach and coaching search in one thread than having multiples, IMO.

Re: Dawley out, new coach ?

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2016 9:48 am
by MikeUMA
cox'n wrote:I didn't think UMass would hire a white male.
It is interesting that, aside from Jack Leaman's one year fill-in as the women's coach, this is the first male coach in the women's team history (started 1968).
http://www.umassathletics.com/sports/w- ... chive.html

Re: Dawley out, new coach ?

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2016 3:33 pm
by cox'n
Darrice Griffin has a very solid background as a college basketball player and in collegiate athletics administration. If she thinks the right woman for the job is a man then it's hard to argue otherwise.

Re: Dawley out, new coach ?

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2016 8:02 pm
by Dickie Dunn
MikeUMA wrote:
cox'n wrote:I didn't think UMass would hire a white male.
It is interesting that, aside from Jack Leaman's one year fill-in as the women's coach, this is the first male coach in the women's team history (started 1968).
http://www.umassathletics.com/sports/w- ... chive.html
Not only that, but there have been relatively few male coaches of women's teams going all the way back to the 1980s.

Women's soccer has had the most: Ken Banda, Jim Rudy and now Ed Matz. Only one season of Angela Napoli between Rudy and Matz. Bob Newcomb has been coaching women's swimming forever.

Otherwise ...

Cross country/track: Has been Julie Lafreniere forever.

Field hockey: Never has had a male coach

Lacrosse: Phil Barnes for three seasons from 2000-02 (honestly, don't even remember him), he's the only one all the way back to the pre-Pam Hixon days in the 1970s

Softball: The immortal Chet Gladchuck coached the team for one season in the late 1970s before giving way to Sortino

Tennis: Judy Dixon has been the coach since the program was reinstated in the early '90s

UMass hasn't had volleyball for many years, but I can only recall female coaches: Bonnie Kenny, Carol Ford and Sortino.

Re: Coach Tory Verdi

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2016 8:35 pm
by Dickie Dunn
Also, Leaman's hire was under unusual circumstances. Barbara Stevens left just before the start of the fall semester to take the Bentley job (where she still is today). Essentially made it impossible to do a coaching search, so Jack (who was coaching the Stockbridge team at the time) agreed to take over for a year. It was the program's only winning season from 1980-1995.

Re: Coach Tory Verdi

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2016 8:13 am
by Swampy
The immortal Chet Gladchuck coached the team for one season in the late 1970s before giving way to Sortino


Rumor has it that Chet and Old Cage used to frequent The Drake back in the day. :wink:

Re: Coach Tory Verdi

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2016 11:13 am
by MikeUMA
Matty V mentioned on Twitter that Verdi's deal is for 5 years.

Re: Coach Tory Verdi

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2016 11:24 am
by InnervisionsUMASS
^

Certainly a bit better than the 7 year deal we signed Dawley to.

Re: Coach Tory Verdi

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2016 12:28 pm
by Berkman
I watched the stream and the coach said that he met with the players yesterday and he is meeting with the leftover coaching staff today probably to see if he wants to keep them on his staff and if anyone wants to stay. He did say that he wants to have a staff on board within two weeks. He also said that they had five incoming recruits. Did not say if the were all going to come with the coaching change.The lady assistant AD type that headed up the search committee stressed that they wanted a person with head coaching experience. Coach said that the team would be very active in the community meeting with grammar school kids and doing tutoring trying to get them interested in coming to games.

UMass has to get better with their streams. There was a buzz throughout the part of the presentation.

Re: Coach Tory Verdi

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2016 2:45 pm
by Old Cage
Swampy wrote:The immortal Chet Gladchuck coached the team for one season in the late 1970s before giving way to Sortino


Rumor has it that Chet and Old Cage used to frequent The Drake back in the day. :wink:
Off topic, but Chet had a tough year with the softball team. All they did was go 26-2-1.

Chet at The Drake - probably
OC at The Drake - definitely, even for a good dinner
Chet & OC together at The Drake - not so much

He was in his 40's at the time, and did step in and teach the mandatory P-E classes that I had to take, as did Dick MacPherson.

Re: Coach Tory Verdi

Posted: Sat Apr 16, 2016 10:26 am
by m626t
It will be interesting to compare how 2 new A10 coaches fare. Coach Verdi vs the new GW coach Jen Rizzotti, just hired away from UHart. I wonder if she was ever in the picture for the UMass job...

Re: Coach Tory Verdi

Posted: Sat Apr 16, 2016 12:48 pm
by tdmass
^ Don't know for sure but I believe Rizotti was courted the last time when we ultimately hired Dawley(maybe she's not interested in working at UMass).Getting back to our new hire, I think he realizes that this is a real "sleeping giant" in woman's CB what with the new champions center along with Mullins, he believes we should be able to recruit with almost anybody!

Re: Coach Tory Verdi

Posted: Sat Apr 16, 2016 6:49 pm
by Refuse2Lose83
^I really hope it is a sleeping giant. Would love to have a women's program we can get excited about and support.

Re: Coach Tory Verdi

Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 1:31 pm
by Berkman
Kind of quiet on what might be going on with the program. Coach said that he met with the players, former coaches and incoming recruits. Seems some decisions should have been made by now. I thought we would hear something soon.

Re: Coach Tory Verdi

Posted: Wed May 04, 2016 10:02 pm
by UMassNet15
Verdi is promoting Candice Walker to Director of Basketball Operations per her Twitter.
@walker_coach: I'm so thankful for the opportunity that @CoachVerdiUMass has given me ! Now it's time to work even harder ! #GoUMass #promotion #WEWILLWIN
Verdi has also completed his staff per his Twitter.
@CoachVerdiUMass: Completed my staff!! Now it's time to get to work! #WeWillWin