At least she can offer scholarships now. Northwestern is an excellent school in a great city. Carla drew players to Tufts and Princeton- she knows how to recruit scholar-athletes
I thought of Carla, Megan Griffith (Columbia) and Carrie Moore (Harvard) when the Northwestern position came up.
All three have made their teams the competition for the Ivy League title and/or getting into the NCAA and/or WNIT/WBIT.
They've done it, with Carla doing it a bit more successfully and also developing three players for the W.
The academic standards are a big challenge, but the financial grants most top Ivies give now to folks under a certain income make it easier to help recruit. Still, landing a Madison St. Rose, the NJ HS player of the year, isn't going to happen every cycle.
Northwestern can offer a bit of both: NIL money and the academic reputation that many players will go after; rightfully knowing most of their careers will be in something other than hoops by the time they're 25-30.
The Welsh-Ryan Center was redone just before the pandemic and while not a huge arena, it's top notch.
"Uncle" Joe McKeown had gotten Northwestern into a few post-season tourneys in the early 20's when Veronica Burton was wearing the purple and white, but it's been steadily downhill since then. Uncle Joe stayed too long.
I think Carla Berube will rely on her connections to academic high schools that produce very good players to form the basis of a team and will use that $800,000 to go after the Burtons of the world that can get into the post-season.
In the meantime, she and her family should enjoy Evanston and the northern suburbs: great towns (I spent two summers renting rooms in N'western while interning in Chicago.)
Good luck!
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