Three-Point Play: Notre Dame Women’s Basketball Completes Staff
The Notre Dame women’s basketball staff under newly hired head coach Niele Ivey was officially completed and announced Wednesday evening.
As projected earlier this month, former Fighting Irish point guard 1993 alumnus and assistant Coquese Washington was hired as associate head coach to round out the bench staff. She joins holdovers Carol Owens and Michaela Mabrey.
Owens also will continue to hold the associate head coach title, as she has had two 10-year stints with the Fighting Irish (1995-2005 and 2010-present) with a role of mentoring the post players.
Former Notre Dame guard Mabrey (2012-16) was hired last year to replace Ivey, who had taken an assistant’s position with the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies before returning this spring to succeed 33rd-year head coach and Naismith Hall of Fame inductee Muffet McGraw. Mabrey’s title is assistant coach, and her role will include assisting Washington with the guards and wings.
Unlike Ivey in the past, no one on the staff holds the “recruiting coordinator” title.
1. Full Circle
The former point guard Washington helped lead Notre Dame to its first NCAA Tournament in 1992, was an assistant for McGraw for the 2001 national champs — and shortly before that season played for WNBA champ Houston.
She coached All-American Ivey — along with All-Americans Alicia Ratay and Megan Duffy, now the head coach at Marquette — before Ivey was hired by McGraw in 2007 to succeed her when Washington was named head coach at Penn State.
Washington peaked with the Nittany Lions from 2012-14 with three straight Big Ten titles and two Sweet 16 appearances. Prior to her arrival, the program had signed only one McDonald’s All-American, but she and her staff inked six.
However, much like Notre Dame this past year, the program had a sudden thud in 2015, dropping to 6-24, and never quite recovered. Penn State was 67-89 from 2015-19, leading to an agreement between Washington and Penn State vice president for intercollegiate athletics Sandy Barbour — who worked at Notre Dame with Washington from 2000-04 — that a change in direction was needed.
Washington, who finished 209-169 at Penn State served as associate head coach at Oklahoma this past season before coming full circle with Ivey.
“It's an absolute blessing to welcome Coquese back home to Notre Dame,” Ivey said in a released statement. “Her experience as a former player and alum, WNBA champion and former head coach, plus her national championship coaching pedigree, provides me with incredible knowledge and wisdom.”
2. Renaissance Woman
In addition to her basketball acumen at Flint (Mich.) Central, Washington became quite the renowned musician while playing seven different instruments.
She finished her undergraduate degree at Notre Dame one year ahead of schedule, and then earned her Juris Doctorate from Notre Dame in 1997, earning “Double-Domer” status while also playing basketball professionally.
Washington used that law degree to help create the WNBA Players Association, serving as its founding president from 1999-2001. She served as the executive vice president of the WNBPA from 2001 until her retirement in 2003. Washington led negotiations for the association's first collective bargaining agreement.
“So much of who I am can be traced back to my time at Notre Dame both as a student and as a young professional,” Washington said in a university release. “Being a part of our women’s basketball staff again is truly energizing.”
3. Beth Cunningham
The elephant in the room with the transition is the awkward departure of one of Notre Dame’s all-time greats in Cunningham, who joins Ivey in the Ring of Honor.
Still the school’s No. 3 all-time leading scorer who helped propel Notre Dame to its initial Final Four as a senior in 1997, Cunningham was the head coach at VCU for nine years before returning to her alma mater as an associate head coach in 2012 and serving on the bench with Ivey through 2019.
Coaching transitions often have uncomfortable moments, and this was one of them, especially given that Cunningham has been a well respected and beloved figure in the program’s annals plus within the community.
From a football perspective, two awkward moments like this over the past 40 years included new head coach Gerry Faust shifting highly popular 1964-80 defensive line coach Joe Yonto to an administrative role, and first-year head coach Bob Davie ousting 1988-96 offensive line coach Joe Moore.
When the tenures of both Faust and Davie began to fail, those decisions became highlighted even more.
Conversely, when popular 1964-74 backfield coach Tom Pagna was not promoted to replace head coach Ara Parseghian in 1974, that too resulted in much second guessing. But when third-year head coach Dan Devine and Co., won a national title in 1977, it no longer became as much a controversy.
Time will tell.
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