Caroline as Assistant Coach

[AmeriConn]

100%!! Caroline would make an excellent ass’t coach, at UConn of course. I’ve made mention of this many times to my wife. She would be able to relate to the young recruits coming in. Hope it happens.

 

[Sifaka]

If she wants to be a coach that's fine, but it's like getting a PHD and then training to be a surgeon.

Very much off-topic—or is it?—when I lived in CT my family physician, an M.D., went to med school after earning his PhD in
engineering. He was a very good doctor.

 

[PacoSwede]

all this commentary, chatter among BYers -- makes no difference whether carol wants to be a coach ... and being a coach for grade-schoolers might satisfy her. it's her life. i hope it's all she desires.

 

[HuskyNan]

Did we see this article before?

How a UConn star used a Florida clinic to get back to basketball after debilitating concussions

Once a highly-rated prospect, concussions were derailing Caroline Ducharme’s career at UConn. After nearly 500 days between games, hyperbaric treatment at the Aviv Clinics in Florida helped her return to the court.

www.sbnation.com

 

[Bigboote]

A more recent issue. I read migraine but that has kept her out multiple games?

If I'm her (coach, trainer, physician, it doesn't matter), I don't want her playing basketball if there's even a twinge of pain in her head.

 

[broooce]

I'd think the same thing, but there's precedent to do otherwise. Chantel Osahor was a grad assistant for Mike Neighbors (although he had moved from Washington to Arkansas by then); Blair Schaefer has worked for Vic I think pretty much since she graduated (yeah, that's different); Ali Patberg at Indiana, McKayla Mabrey at Notre Dame. . .

Definitely not the norm, but it does seem to work out sometimes. My advisor in graduate school told me that I should take a postdoc in a subfield far removed from my own, but I took a job in a lab that I'd visited several times and wound up working there my whole career. I never stopped loving the work, although the job got tedious the last decade or so.

I don't disagree with going somewhere else to start a coaching career as it's always good to get as diverse an experience as possible. Since she's already had five years as a player for Geno and his staff I'm sure she's learned a lot by being there every day. However, timing is everything and maybe staying with UConn while Geno is still here is not a bad idea. As we know he has other former head coaches on the staff that Caroline can continue to be mentored by.

Perhaps going to another program in Geno's coaching tree such as Shea's or Carla's teams, or some successful local programs like Fairfield, Quinnipiac, URI or even NYU (D3). I'd like to believe that head coaches from other top D1 programs would take Geno's presumptive referral of Caroline and add her to their staffs as a GA, whether Texas, NC State, USC, UCLA or even South Carolina. Learning from the best in the business will best help her not only with X's & O's but also to discover her own style and voice as she gains experience on a path to becoming a future head coach herself.

 

[Bigboote]

Perhaps going to another program in Geno's coaching tree such as Shea's or Carla's teams, or some successful local programs like Fairfield, Quinnipiac, URI or even NYU (D3). I'd like to believe that head coaches from other top D1 programs would take Geno's presumptive referral of Caroline and add her to their staffs as a GA, whether Texas, NC State, USC, UCLA or even South Carolina. Learning from the best in the business will best help her not only with X's & O's but also to discover her own style and voice as she gains experience on a path to becoming a future head coach herself.

I like those ideas -- URI, Quinnipiac, and Fairfield all have excellent coaches, and going to one of Geno's proteges also makes a lot of sense, although it wouldn't be as far removed from what she's used to. I was thinking the same as you, that Caroline ought to be able to write her own ticket given her background and apparent desire. Geno knows and is respected by everybody who's anybody.