Dan Fleser: Kellie Harper Sees Buzz Of Excitement Around Lady Vol Program

  • Friday, May 7, 2021
  • Dan Fleser

Kellie Harper introduced two new assistant coaches this week and alluded to a different sort of feeling surrounding Tennessee women’s basketball.


“There’s been a lot of buzz around the program, a lot of excitement,” said Harper, the Lady Vols head coach.


If so, hiring Samantha Williams and Joy McCorvey constitutes the reason why.

They reflect the biggest change since the season’s end. Heck, they represent the program’s biggest coaching transition since former Lady Vol Harper replaced another alum, Holly Warlick, as head coach in the spring of 2019. Williams and McCorvey are two-thirds of the coaching staff. Since the third member is Harper’s husband, Jon, the Lady Vols would be hard-pressed to make any more change.

Williams, who also will serve as recruiting coordinator, has 22 years of college coaching experience and a strong track record for recruiting. She left a head coaching job at Eastern Kentucky to join Harper’s staff.


McCorvey, meanwhile, was the associate head coach at Florida State and has 10 years of coaching experience.   


Harper intimated that the new assistants already have had their say in coaching matters by saying, “we addressed some things we need to do better.”


“I’m excited about where we’re heading and the game plan that we have,” Harper said.


She then characterized the reconfigured staff’s synergy in the grandest terms possible.


“I think all our visions align,” Harper said, “and we’re really excited to move forward chasing national championships here.”


First, they all have to make their way through the SEC. Other conference members have created their own buzz this spring.


LSU sent shock waves through the ranks by hiring Kim Mulkey away from Baylor, giving her a whopping total compensation package of $23.6 million spread across eight years. Mulkey will be paid more than LSU men’s basketball coach Will Wade.


The hire reverberated throughout the sport, not just the league.


Mulkey, a Louisiana native, turned her introductory press conference last week into a revival of sorts. She coached Baylor to three national championships during her 21 years there. Mulkey has an eye for more titles at LSU, which went to five consecutive NCAA Final Fours from 2004-’08.


“I want you to see those banners behind you,” said Mulkey, who was speaking to the players who were assembled for her introduction. “Final Four, Final Four, Final Four, Final Four. Nowhere on there does it say national champion. That’s what I came here to do.”


Elsewhere, Kentucky added Gail Goestenkors as an assistant on the staff of head coach Kyra Elzy.

While at Duke, Goestenkors was named Atlantic Coast Conference coach of Year seven times during her 15-year tenure. She coached the Blue Devils to four Final Fours and two national runner-up finishes.


“Coach Elzy has a clear vision where she wants to take this program,” Goestenkors said of the former Lady Vol, “and I feel that same energy from the players and staff.”


When asked about these other coaching moves, Harper said: “Well, the SEC is the best. Everyone wants to be a part of the best.”


As it stands, the Lady Vols definitely are different for having two new coaches. They intend to be better in order to keep pace with the best.

 

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Dan Fleser is a 1980 graduate of the University of Missouri, who covered University of Tennessee athletics from 1988-2019. He can be reached at danfleser3@gmail.com.

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