DURHAM, NC - JANUARY 23: Coach Gail Goestenkors (R) confers with Lindsay Harding #10 of the Duke Blue Devils during the first half against the Tennessee Volunteers on January 23, 2006 at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, North Carolina. Could one of them return to the sidelines for Duke? | Photo By Grant Halverson/Getty Images
This should be really interesting
In his recent piece for DBR on Duke women’s basketball, Jim Sumner touched briefly on possible successors, saying this:
“You’ll likely hear lots of speculation about her successor and the [Gail] Goestenkors rumors are not baseless. Neither are the rumors that Alana Beard and/or Lindsey Harding might be interested in coming back home, although possibly not in an assistant role.
“Goestenkors is 57 and hasn’t coached at the collegiate level since 2012.
“Worth a roll of the dice? Or better to go with a young up-and-comer?”
The concern there is that neither Beard or Harding have run a college program. We have immense respect for Beard but we don’t think she has coached at all. Harding however has worked for the Philadelphia 76ers and Sacramento Kings as a player development coach and is highly regarded. She might decide to do what a lot of young coaches do and hire an older coach as a mentor for a time to help her learn the stuff she can’t know until she encounters it which is what coaches like Steve Lavin (Gene Keady, former Purdue coach) and Juwan Howard (Phil Martinelli, former St. Joe’s coach) did. We’re pretty sure Duke fans would be pleased and optimistic if Harding got the job.
Could Goestenkors return?
Well it’s certainly possible. She’s been out of the game for a while though and the game is always changing. There’s no guarantee she’d succeed again.
That said, although she didn’t set the world on fire at Texas, she never had a losing season.
It’s also worth mentioning that whatever conflict she may have had at Duke with former AD Joe Alleva, he’s long gone too, so she’d be starting fresh with his successor Kevin White.
That said, if we were Kevin White, we would make two calls first, pick your own order. The calls would go to Wake AD John Currie to ask him how he dealt with a coaching search during a pandemic. Although it’s too early to be conclusive, the general consensus is that Wake Forest managed their search well despite the late start and the restrictions the pandemic imposed.
The second? At Notre Dame, White employed one of the very best women’s coaches in the business in Muffet McGraw. If he hasn’t called her already to get some insights, he’s most likely done it today.
Or Duke might opt to use a search firm. In the uncertain times we live, search firms make a lot more sense than they might otherwise.
Whatever happens, Duke needs to move fast. It’s quite late to hire a new coach. When Bucky Waters resigned in 1974 shortly before the season was to begin, then-AD Carl James had little choice but to promote assistant Neil McGeachy, who was put in a very difficult situation and only lasted one season.
At UNC, Dean Smith retired not long before the season began and UNC also had little choice but to hire his assistant, Bill Guthridge.
Those replacements were later in the summer but then again neither AD had to deal with a pandemic and travel restrictions and the like.
In short, any coaching change has the dangers of transitional issues and also the opportunity to build something new and special. The key question is how the hire is managed and for Duke, having a highly respected AD like Kevin White in charge is a major asset.
And now we wait.
