Kim Caldwell and the Tennessee Lady Vols are taking a very big leap together with the young coach tasked with turning the historic program back into title contenders.
Caldwell, who has coached only one of her eight seasons as a Division I head coach, will be working in the shadow cast by the late Pat Summitt and her eight national championship banners hanging in the rafters. Caldwell addressed how Summitt changed women’s basketball when introduced Tuesday.
“I will never be Pat Summitt,” Caldwell said. “Nobody can, but I will strive every day to be somebody that she would be proud of.”
Tennessee announced the hiring of the fourth Lady Vols coach in 50 years Sunday just before the women’s national championship game. Athletic director Danny White said Caldwell stood out in her interview during the weeklong search.
We have a very competitive new coach and someone who wasn’t afraid of the challenge to restore this legendary program to where we all want it to be,” White said.
Caldwell will need to be more than confident. She’s making the jump from the Sun Belt Conference to the Southeastern Conference — home to the past three national champs.
She also is the Lady Vols’ first coach not from Tennessee since Summitt took over in 1974 at the age of 22. Summitt went 1,098-208 in her vaunted career with her Lady Vols also finishing as the national runner-up five times.
Caldwell replaces Kellie Harper, who won three titles playing for Summitt in the 1990s only to be fired April 1 after going 108-52 in five seasons. Her predecessor, another Lady Vols former player in Holly Warlick, took Tennessee to three Elite Eights — a place Tennessee last reached in 2016.
Tennessee’s last Final Four was in 2008 when the Lady Vols won their eighth and last national title under Summitt, who retired in 2012 after being diagnosed with early onset dementia, Alzheimer’s type.
The SEC that Tennessee used to dominate put eight teams in the NCAA Tournament, and the Lady Vols finished just outside the final AP Top 25 released Monday.
The SEC only gets tougher next season with No. 7 Texas and No. 21 Oklahoma joining the league in July.
White said Caldwell will build a program that competes with the “extremely formidable opponents” in the SEC and “get back to competing for national championships.”