Coale Inspired By WBB Growth

Aug. 3, 2007

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - New Women's Basketball Coaches Association president Sherri Coale sees the sport in a time of tremendous growth, but also a chance to make it even better.

The Oklahoma coach concluded her second day as WBCA president Thursday by finishing the group's annual meetings and returning home to speak before a gathering of Sooners fans.

"Really it's an exciting time for women's basketball," Coale said. "There's a lot of youth and a lot of passion and a lot of hunger there."

Coale called the summer meetings proactive brainstorming sessions in which coaches tried to find ways to improve women's college basketball. Coale said that while the past 15 Final Fours were sold out and television coverage is expanding, there are some "threats or concerns" that need to be addressed.

"One concern is the attendance in the NCAA tournament this past year was, too be quite candid, brutal in the early rounds," Coale said. "I think we're coming up with some measures that will answer those questions and hopefully build that momentum into the Final Four the way it should be."

After attendance in the NCAA tournament regionals dropped this year, Coale said the NCAA committee would "tweak a couple things in the bracketing process that will help the placement," and there were other proposals that she couldn't discuss. She called them "small things that will make a big impact."

In recent years, early round games were moved from campus sites to neutral locations.

The other major concern for women's basketball was a 30 percent turnover among Division I coaches, Coale said. With longtime coaches like Texas' Jody Conradt and Texas Tech's Marsha Sharp retiring, a new generation of coaches are coming into the sport.

"I think there are some challenges to how we grow the new, young coaches and how we utilize the minds and experience and wisdom of those guys who just left our profession," Coale said.

In the Big 12 alone, Coale has watched Conradt, Sharp, Kansas' Marian Washington and Colorado's Ceal Berry retire in the past few years. That foursome combined for more than 2,450 wins.

"For the first time in women's basketball, we have seen the leaders and the matriarchs of our sport move on," Coale said. "We have never faced this before. You talk to people on the men's side, and 30 percent is not really that big of a deal. It happens all the time. But this is the first time our sport has faced that."

Coale said she thought the sport would be helped by the WNBA gaining some momentum and by premier college teams being more willing to play one another more often. Oklahoma's schedule this year includes games against defending national champion Tennessee and 2006 champion Maryland, plus two invitational tournaments and nonconference meetings with Michigan State and South Carolina.

"This year there are some marquee matchups across the country that are made for television, which as you know is what exploded the men's game," Coale said.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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