Ducks add experience with new assistant.Byline: Rob Moseley The Register-GuardHoping to hire an assistant with West Coast ties and a strong recruiting background, UO women's basketball Women's basketball is one of the few games which developed in tandem with men's. It became popular, spreading from the east coast of the United States to the west coast, in large part via women's colleges. coach Bev Smith Bev Smith (born April 4 1960) is the head women's basketball coach at the University of Oregon. She has held that position since 2001, replacing controversial coach Jody Runge, and has posted an 83-69 record. scored a resounding re·sound v. re·sound·ed, re·sound·ing, re·sounds v.intr. 1. To be filled with sound; reverberate: The schoolyard resounded with the laughter of children. 2. victory Friday with the addition of veteran Pac-10 assistant Willette White. White, who resigned as head coach at Northeastern in March after six seasons with the Huskies, previously spent 15 seasons in the Pac-10 Conference. She was an associate head coach at UCLA UCLA University of California at Los Angeles UCLA University Center for Learning Assistance (Illinois State University) UCLA University of Carrollton, TX and Lower Addison, TX from 1993 until 2000 - spending seven seasons in one of the West Coast's most fertile recruiting areas - and before that was an assistant at Washington for eight years. "I've known Willette for quite a number of years, and first of all she's just a great person and a great professional," Smith said. "She knows the game, and she knows the business of recruiting. She can bring a lot to the program, on and off the floor." White fills the void created by the departure of Peg Swadener from Smith's staff last month. Her hiring at Oregon takes effect June 1, and she will receive a base salary of about $80,000 on a renewable one-year contract. A Tacoma native and Idaho alumna who once served as a graduate assistant to current Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer Tara VanDerveer is the Stanford University women's basketball coach for most of the past two decades. She has led her Stanford team, known as The Cardinal, to two NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championships in 1990 and 1992. at Ohio State in the 1980s, White struggled as a head coach. The Huskies went just 64-109 during her tenure in Boston. But her reputation as an assistant and recruiter is sterling. "She's got a relentless work ethic work ethic n. A set of values based on the moral virtues of hard work and diligence. work ethic Noun a belief in the moral value of work , No. 1," Smith said. "She understands that recruiting is about relationships, and she's very approachable and very personable PERSONABLE. Having the capacities of a person; for example, the defendant was judged personable to maintain this action. Old Nat. Brev. 142. This word is obsolete. . When you have a conversation with Willette, you leave knowing more about yourself than her - she just has that charisma, and that's important in the recruiting process." As is identifying talent. "I think she has a great understanding of the kind of elite athlete elite athlete Sports medicine An athlete with potential for competing in the Olympics or as a professional athlete; EAs are at ↑ risk for injuries, given the amount of training, for psychological abuse by coaches and parents, and self abuse. you need to be successful in the Pac-10," Smith said. White was a Division II all-American as a guard at Idaho, and she will work with Oregon's perimeter players. She is respected enough to have been an assistant to Geno Auriemma at the Junior World Championships in 2001. Smith said White's experience at Northeastern was invaluable, if not always successful on the scoreboard. "Her six years in Boston were good for her, as she said, seeing a different kind of basketball," Smith said. "I think she has kept in touch with the Pac-10 and knows it, and I think that helps as well. ... "I'm really looking forward to meeting with her, sitting down and picking her brain about the differences in East Coast basketball." When White left Northeastern, her initial intention was to pursue a career in sports management. Instead, she's back in the coaching ranks. "I think she was just looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. a change - maybe not getting out of coaching, but a change in what she was doing," Smith said. "She had planned to get back out West, and we had talked for years about where she wanted to go with things. I think she feels good about what we have here." |
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