It will be interesting to see how this affects the team.
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Mike Carmin reports that Sharon Versyp has retired “effective immediately” and Katie Gearlds will take over.
- Thread starter DocRon
- Start date
This should have happened a long time ago.. Am now even more excited about this program than ever.
The jury is out now on Katie.. .what does she bring to the table as a P5 WBB HC? I really like Katie and her charisma and it will be fun to see what her coaching style will be and if she brings an exciting brand of basketball to Mackey Arena this upcoming season. I hope that they give her a long enough leash and that fans give her a honeymoon and don't put too many expectations on her right away.. I think she'll do great! Go Katie!
Did you see the train wreck at Vanderbilt?
I doubt TV gig is what she wants long term. I think the question is whether she waits for a HC job, or she is willing to take some time as an assistant. It may also be a bit awkward for her given that supposedly she has higher seniority.
I do worry about the assistant job that is now open up. Can we really get a quality person this late in the offseason? Originally, I think the plan was to basically punt the season and let Katie focus on recruiting to hopefully build for the future, but now Katie needs to be on top of the day-to-day and game-planning, so she really needs to find a quality assistant quickly. I'm afraid this will be more difficult than say Painter looking for an assistant, given Painter's vast network and respect in the industry.
4 years as a player. 14 years as a coach. I would like to thank her for all her years of work in the women's basketball program.
For an assistant, we need a person that can work as part of Katie's team. Who can teach kids important skills, help scheme defense and offense, and can recruit. From what I've seen, Stephanie White, bless her heart, might fall short on a number of these qualities.
I love Stephanie for what she did to represent Purdue as a student-athlete, I love that she still is a proud Boilermaker Alum...but her collegiate head coaching record is 46-83 (.357) overall, and 13-54 (.194) in SEC doesn't instill a lot of confidence in her coaching ability. In 5 seasons her team never finished higher than 11th!
She's an Indiana h.s. legend, but her last Purdue game was in 1999, BEFORE ANY OF TODAY's high school players were born. Her last WNBA game was 17 years ago, too long ago for any current h.s. player to have seen her play.
I love Stephanie, I just don't understand our fans who, at every opportunity (and multiple times even when we didn't have an opening on staff) proclaim that Purdue should hire her to be a coach.
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It will be interesting to see who we get. I Hope it is someone good. Katie G. has her hands full this year.
I also believe that she was losing players to transfer at Vanderbilt at an alarming rate at the end. Not exactly the move to make to remedy a similar situation here we're trying to transition away from.
I would still love for Purdue to make a run at Kathie Layden from Northwestern High School here in Howard County. I think she would be an amazing assistant to Coach Gearlds. She is a proven big time winner and builder of programs. Of course she is also Madison & McKenna Layden's Mom.
I wonder if this is health related. The timing is so off on this.
I doubt it is health related. She didn't leave when she was diagnosed with cancer.
I think it's more about the allegation that she created a toxic and hostile environment. Keeping her around will just distract our recruiting. Her departure frees us from that baggage and stops being a distraction.
True.
There may have been a very recent incident between SV and the players or Katie which may have precipitated this announcement. I agree that it does create a clean slate for the new HC.
It is hard to believe the ”resignation” is not a direct result of Purdue’s investigation conducted by the University's Office of Institutional Equity about the charges against her program by at least one player. The results were expected before the season started. I suspect those results are in and are embarrassing and incriminating. In deference to her years of service, I would bet Purdue allowed Sharon to resign rather than be fired.
It is a shame for Versyp’s career to end this way. And a huge dump of responsibility into Katie’s lap that she never thought she would be facing.
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Saw this on Twitter a little while ago. Class. Pure class. I’m sure it’s bittersweet for Katie as she’s in an awkward position right now. Probably took her a bit to process everything and author this tweet. But I have zero doubt she has the gravitas to navigate this whole scenario with calm and smarts. Purdue WBB is indeed in good hands.
Program is definitely in good hands. The culture will improve immediately, and given some time, the results will follow.
Isn't the whole family involved coaching that team?...
It's why I adore Katie so much..... she's da bomb! I just love her!
You're joking right? The timing aligns pretty logically with the growing investigation into her behavior and actions, as alleged by more than one former player.
She had Carolyn Peck as an asst coach. That virtually guarantees a train wreck.
You mean the person that coached and led this program to it's 1 and only NCAA Championship?... and the only NCAA title in any of the 3 main sports at Purdue in the history of the University? trainwreck? goodgrief. Noted
Yep, the person who was handed a national championship team, immediately quit, went to Florida as HC and fell flat on her face and eventually ended up as an asst coach at Vandy and dragged that team down too.
Yeesh, they could have let her go a long time ago for performance but they wait for a scandal? Good luck to KG, now she's in a tough spot.
I don't understand your hostility. She was "Coach of the Year" from multiple sources for her national championship here in 1998-99. But she also coached in 1997-98 and got to the Elite 8. So the fact that she improved from one year to the next hardly indicates she "was handed a national championship team."
She did not do well in the pros but Peck is hardly the first coach to make that jump and fail. And at Vanderbilt she was there as an assistant coach for Stephanie White's first two seasons and the results were not good. But Whites's results were just as bad the next 3 seasons after Peck left.
Peck was one of the most successful coaches in Purdue history and if you watched the great BTN doc on the championship year you would know she took over a demoralized team after Lin Dunn was fired and Nell Fortner left after one year to take over Team USA. After her first year she was offered and took the HC job with the Orlando WNBA team but out of loyalty to her Purdue team members she insisted on staying one more year - the year they won the national championship. She was honest with the team and told them before the beginning of the year that she would be leaving.
I feel nothing but gratitude for her being our HC and leading Purdue to its only national championship other than for golf. Did she not recruit your daughter or what is the reason for your personal animosity towards her?
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Stephanie drove that team/program into the ditch. Blaming an assistant for Stephanie's utter failure at Vanderbilt is a joke at best. At least 8 starters transferred away from that program under her watch and she finished winning less than 20% of their conference games.
