March 12, 2024 • 41 mins
In 1976 (when the Olympics were easy to watch on one over-the-air channel), Tanya Haave got inspired by a sport featuring women for the first time: basketball. Watching Team USA that year would lead her around the world.
At Evergreen High School, Tanya was a standout in both basketball and volleyball. In 1980 she was so dominate, the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame created a female selection to their High School Athlete of the Year award and she won the first one. That same year, she won the coveted Steinmark Award and Sportswoman of the Year.
She opted for the University of Tennessee where she could play basketball under Pat Summit and if that didn’t work out, the volleyball program was waiting for her. Her time with the Lady Vols and Coach Summit worked out just fine: 3 NCAA Final Four appearances and two National Championships. The WNBA didn’t exist when Tanya graduated from Tennessee, so she took her talents overseas where she was a 12-time All-Star in 14 years of playing professional basketball in several countries.
When her playing career was done, the coaching bug bit her and after being an assistant at Regis, the University of Colorado and University of Denver, she got her first head coaching gig at the University of San Fransisco. It was a rough four seasons with many lessons learned, especially with recruiting and finding the right staff. When she was let go from San Fransisco in 2010, Metro State University pursued her, and she became the Roadrunner’s head coach. Since then, Tanya has become a 3-time RMAC Coach of the Year and the Roadrunner’s winningest coach in school history. She's also a member of the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.
At Evergreen High School, Tanya was a standout in both basketball and volleyball. In 1980 she was so dominate, the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame created a female selection to their High School Athlete of the Year award and she won the first one. That same year, she won the coveted Steinmark Award and Sportswoman of the Year.
She opted for the University of Tennessee where she could play basketball under Pat Summit and if that didn’t work out, the volleyball program was waiting for her. Her time with the Lady Vols and Coach Summit worked out just fine: 3 NCAA Final Four appearances and two National Championships. The WNBA didn’t exist when Tanya graduated from Tennessee, so she took her talents overseas where she was a 12-time All-Star in 14 years of playing professional basketball in several countries.
When her playing career was done, the coaching bug bit her and after being an assistant at Regis, the University of Colorado and University of Denver, she got her first head coaching gig at the University of San Fransisco. It was a rough four seasons with many lessons learned, especially with recruiting and finding the right staff. When she was let go from San Fransisco in 2010, Metro State University pursued her, and she became the Roadrunner’s head coach. Since then, Tanya has become a 3-time RMAC Coach of the Year and the Roadrunner’s winningest coach in school history. She's also a member of the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We went to her house to havedinner. So if we get there and
whole staff's there, all her neighborsare there, several former players, me,
and then some of the people inKnoxville. I've never seen her uncontrollably
sobbing like this, but she saysgrace, and she tells us all that
she's got the early onset, andit was pretty powerful to I'm getting emotional
(00:24):
now. Welcome to Cut, Traded, Fired, Retired, a weekly podcast
featuring conversations with professional athletes and coacheswho have experienced being cut, traded,
fired, and or they're retired.I'm your host, Susie Wargen. This
episode's guest has her name in numeroushall of fames, including the Colorado Sports
Hall of Fame, Tennessee Lady Vall'sHall of Fame, and the National High
(00:47):
School Hall of Fame. Not toobad for a product of Little Evergreen High
School, or at least it waslittle when Tanya Hobby was there in the
late seventies. Tanya's basketball dream startedwhen she was watching the women's team play
in the nineteen seventies six Olympics,and then when she grew to six foot
two her sophomore year of high school, her path seemed to be a yellow
brick road. She won the SteinmarckAward and played on two national championship teams
(01:11):
under Pat Summit. Unfortunately, theWNBA had informed when Tanya graduated from Tennessee,
so she went across the Atlantic andwas a twelve time All Star in
fourteen seasons overseas. When she cameback to the States for good, she
started coaching almost immediately. A coupleof assistant jobs led to a head coaching
gig in San Francisco, where,after four lackluster seasons, she got fired.
(01:34):
In twenty ten, the athletic directorat Metro State University saw something else
in Tanya, and she offered herthe head coaching gig at MSU. She's
been there ever since and has rackedup a number of accolades in the process.
Ladies and gentlemen, Tanya Hovey cutTraded Fired retired podcast with Susie Wargin.
Hello, Tanya Hovey, how youdoing. I'm great? How were
(01:57):
you, Susie? I'm good.It's so excited to have you in here.
I was telling you the females Ineed more females on the podcast.
You're now the second one next toSeal. That's pretty good company. Actually
there I saw. I'm extremely honored. Yeah, well, and you deserve
field there. What a legend,Yeah, legend. I don't even know
that does it justice? But yes, I know. Yeah, she's amazing
(02:17):
and her episode, for those thathaven't listened to it, is pretty spectacular.
You have such a storied career,both between your time as a high
schooler here in Colorado to when youwent to Tennessee to playing professionally to now
what you're doing as a coach.So we're going to kind of go through
all of that. You were sucha legend, speaking of legends at Evergreen
(02:38):
High School, I mean growing upyou were volleyball and basketball and just an
outstanding athlete in both of those sports. Talk about growing up, I mean
Evergreen's pretty small, right, that'syes? So yeah, yeah, were
you born here? You're a native, right or I was from somewhere else,
So born in Denver, lived inArvada for a little while. I
(03:00):
moved to Evergreen when I was infirst grade. My dad got transferred one
year when I was in third grade, but then we came back to Evergreen
and then I was there and youknow, all through high school and this
is the seventies. How did youget into sports? Yeah, it's so
funny. I just was watching thenineteen seventy six Olympics and that was the
(03:20):
first year that they had women's basketballin the Olympics. I'm sitting there with
my dad and just watching it,just thinking, wow, how awesome to
represent your country. And was startingto like basketball. I think it was
fourteen, you know, I wasenjoying basketball playing it, and I just
thought, wow, it just kindof lit the fire in me. I
really wanted to do well. Startedsetting goals and the goal actually was to
(03:44):
be on an Olympic team. AndI can get to that a little bit
later, but that kind of startedit all with the basketball and volleyball just
kind of got thrown into it.You know, Low Hunter from Evergreen.
She was more of the basketball.She was my basketball and volleyball coach,
but it was more about the volleyball. Oh interesting, Oh yeah, she
was. You know, she ledwon those nine or eight I can't remember
how many state championships. Oh,it was ridiculous what you guys did in
(04:04):
volleyball. Yeah, and so westarted that streak when I was a junior
in high school. But it startedthen in nineteen seventy six, when I
was just going to be a freshman, just I really want to excel and
do well, and it was mypassion. It was just my passion.
Did you have your height at thatpoint, did you know was taller and
able to do this well? Yeah? I was five eight at the time,
(04:28):
and then between my eighth and ninthgrade year, I grew like four
inches. And then when I wasa sophomore, then I was at six
' two. Oh my gosh.And then everybody's like, yeah, you're
going to play for us. Yeah, and then I was taller than all
the boys, because you know,boys tend to be. But by the
time there were seniors that everybody hadcaught up to me. All the boys
had, but I was taller andtall and lanky. Yeah, a lot
of arms and legs at the time. Yeah, well, as you tend
(04:51):
to be in high school. Andthen we changed as we get older.
So your three years in high schoolthere at Evergreen, your basketball team goes
sixty and ten, volleyball goes sixtyseven and nine. You didn't lose a
lot of games. You had alot of winning. As a high school
player. I mean, just tolook at those records, it's unbelievable what
you guys did when you were inhigh school. Yeah, and I think
(05:12):
you owe that a lot too.Low. Yeah, she knew how to
coach athletes, and she was ascompetitive as they came. I mean this
was way before her time. Wewere we would get up at six in
the morning, from six to sevenbefore class, we were in there practicing,
whether it be basketball or volleyball,and I just remember I'm dragging around.
I am so tired. But wepractice and practice and practice, and
(05:35):
then we would practice after school.Then you just got good and she was
not going to accept losing. SoI think you owe that a lot,
and I think that's important. Youknow, you'd come from a good high
school program and then I was extremelyprivileged to go to a really great collegiate
program. Yes as well, butyeah, you get used to winning and
(05:55):
it's it's fun. It is.Oh. Absolutely. You graduate in nineteen
eighty that year you are the ColoradoSports the first female high school athlete of
the Year. Now at the ColoroSports Bank where we have a male and
a female, but they hadn't hada female before that. So you get
that your Sportswoman of the Year becauseof everything that you do with volleyball and
basketball your senior year and you're theSteinmarcker Award winner, all these great accolades
(06:19):
coming at you as you graduate.Did it hit you at all that Wow,
I kind of got it going on, like, you're the first female
to do a lot of these amazingthings, and to get some of those
awards as a senior in high schoolis just incredible. Yeah, guys,
listening to that now, I'm like, wow, oh, you're starting to
hear about it now. I wasvery honored with this Hall of Fame one,
(06:42):
all of them, all of them. It didn't really hit me because
I was just so focused on Okay, then what's the next thing. Yeah,
I didn't. I had a greattime in high school, but then
I was I tended to be Okay, this is nice. Now we got
to move on, and I wantedto enjoy it. But it didn't hit
me like gosh, kind of likeit just hit me now. I guess
as I get older, right,you're like, oh, yeah, that
was cool. You know. Ididn't think about it like that at the
(07:05):
time, that, yeah, thisis a nice thing. And then what's
next, right, I'm just thinkingwhat's next. How many schools recruited you
aside from Tennessee. Well, Ihad a lot of schools looking for both
volleyball back like so, Pacific Universitywas the top five program in volleyball.
They were gonna let me play basketball. Basketball was more of my focus and
(07:27):
gosh, I don't know, Ihave stacks did trips at that time.
Yeah, well, so date myselfagain. AIAW was the it was before
the NCAA that was the governing bodythat was oversaw women's sports, so you
couldn't pay for official visits in nineteenseventy nine or eighty. So my mom
took me on a trip down toTennessee, Georgia and North Carolina State,
(07:53):
and then I went to Louisiana Techon another one in Texas. But I'd
say total schools Gosha maybe one hundred. And that was before recruiting got what
it is today. I mean,recruiting isn't that. It was still crazy,
but it wasn't like it is today. But they're sending you letters in
the mail. How did you siftthrough them? I'm always curious how you
kind of figured out where you wantedto go. I knew that I really
(08:16):
wanted a high level program, whetherit be volleyball. I pretty much knew
I wanted to play basketball. Butwhat really kind of got my interest is
I was getting letters from all theseschools, but it was low. Hunter
came up to me in the hallwayone day and I wasn't asking her to
help me, but she goes,I think I found the school for you,
(08:37):
and it was a letter from Pat, and hey, this is what
we've got. And I'm like,goh, this is kind of intriguing.
And then I read more about herand then started communicating and then we came
out. My mom and I wentout and visited and we watched him play
Louisiana Tech, which back in theday that was Kim Molkey played at Louisiana
Tech Holy Cas So that was beforeyou know, all the Power five.
(08:58):
Louisiana Tech Old Dominion, they werethe powers in women's basketball in the late
seventies early eighties. So we watchedthem play them in Knoxville. Wow,
and they won by two. Andeverything about Pat, you know, the
professionalism, everything like that, youknow, And I was a para at
all American, so I don't knowshe knew about me and wrote the letter.
Don't know if she was exactly sure, But when she came to pick
(09:20):
me up and yeah, our volleyballcoach says, you're really good at volleyball
too, And I said, well, could I play both? Yeah,
we could try it, you know, so I was ended up going there.
You know, just everything that shetalked about in the recruiting process,
about you know, winning national championships, you know, being all Americans.
You don't want those individual awards,but I said, you know, eventually
(09:41):
would gosh, I would hope tocompete to be on the Olympic team one
day. So we talked about allthose things. So it ended up working
out where she said, Okay,I signed the basketball scholarship because you couldn't
split scholarships at that point. ButI did play volleyball my freshman year,
so she let me do both.I think the volleyball coach can vincer.
She hadn't seen me play a lot, she'd seen me play a little,
(10:03):
she knew I was. I thinkwhat he said. I don't know this,
but I think what he said is, hey, if she doesn't work
out in basketball, I know she'sgoing to work out in volleyball, you
know, because I was like anhonorable mentional, honorable mention All American in
volleyball my freshman year. So that'skind of how that came about. But
I went on the visit for basketball, and everything Pat said resonated with you,
(10:26):
didn't it. Oh, it wasjust I was enthralled with her.
Not yeah exactly. And I've heardyou speak about her. You spoke at
the Sportswoman of Colorado banquet and justhad these words about her. Seal talked
about her. I mean, everybodythat has ever had any kind of relationship
with Pat just talks about what anamazing, amazing coach. And that has
to have helped you as you've goneon later in life as a coach as
(10:48):
well. But as a player,What did she do for you? When
you're at Tennessee, you guys makethree Final four appearances, your national champion
twice. The work ethic and thecommitment, And it's so funny, my
immature when I was in college,I hate that word commitment. She'd always
use it, you know, justfighting back a little bit. But now
I'm using that word a lot.But the work ethic and not that I
(11:09):
was fighting the commitment, but justyou know, being the immature oh yeah,
college college kid in you're nineteen twenty. Yeah. The other thing observing
her, not only when we werein school, because we had some struggles
a couple of years where we werewinning ten games and we're in the national
championship game, that you're never goingto feel sorry for yourself. I had
a good example of that in myfather as well, but from her,
(11:31):
from a professional standpoint, she's notgoing to feel sorry for herself. And
I find myself saying that, especiallywe had a really rough year this year
at MSU Denver at Metro, andwe're not feeling sorry for ourselves. We're
going to go out and we're goingto continue to fight. So I think
that fighting spirit from her being ina game. Yeah, no excuses,
(11:52):
anything like that. The ex'es ando's. It was funny she was here
recruiting in Colorado a few years ago. When she's recruiting, Annstruther and I
went picked her up and we wentto the game and gosh, I really
appreciate everything you've done, and shegoes, I didn't know anything back then.
Then. I said, no,you knew more than you thought you
did. But she was teasing withme that you know, I didn't know
anything. Then I'm like, well, you knew quite a bit. So
(12:13):
from that point, from an nextof Tho's standpoint, surely the game has
changed tremendously, but programmatically from aculture standpoint, those things, those are
things that resonate with me and thatI find myself saying to them to players
quite a bit. Yeah, becauseplays are plays, and the game changes
so much, and you can doall you want to on the court,
but it's what you have as aculture that I think is so so,
(12:35):
so so important in any sport,but in basketball, especially because it's such
a tight group. Yes, absolutely, I mean you always hear the same
culture, eat strategy. You canhave all the plays you want, you
do whatever, Hey, you gottahave players, and then you've got to
have players that are buying in orthat they trust and you trust them and
vice versa. So yeah, absolutely, those are the things that have Those
are timeless lessons that I learned fromher. Absolutely, you are all sec
(13:01):
You're all American, the first allAmerican that the volunteers had. Did you
know that I didn't know? Yeah, I read that. Yeah, I'm
assuming for women's basketball. I didnot know that. Yeah, that was
I've looked through everything. Oh mygosh, I'm impressed with the research.
You leave the school as the alltime leading score that has since been broken,
but you are also a academic.You get an Academic Excellence award.
(13:24):
So obviously the sport was important,but so were the academics. Did Pat
instill that too as far as academicsgo, or was that just something that
you Well, I was a goodstudent in high school, but I picked
my school based on the basketball program, right, you know, for better
or for worse, And it wasa good school. I mean I wanted
to I thought I wanted to bea journalist, start out in journalism and
(13:46):
then switched to communications. So theschooling was always important. But it was
important to Pat as well when sheleft. You know, not everybody that
played there graduated, but everyone thatfinished their eligibility there left with their degree.
Now in the technical terms of howthe NCAA might do it, but
everyone who finished their eligibility there gottheir degree. Wow. I think it
(14:07):
was really important to her. Imean, she's there on graduation day,
she meets with your parents, youknow, and she's passed that on to
me because graduation day for me nowis one of the best days when our
kids graduating bed. You know,I remember one time tell my dad,
oh, I'm doing good enough.Well good enough isn't good enough? Like
school wise? He goes, youdon't want to be average. And so
I'd have to credit that with someof my parents as well. But Pat
(14:28):
was a big influence there. Youknow, you're going to get good grades.
When you spoke about Pat so eloquentlyat the banquet that I mentioned,
you talked about you know, laterin life and how she affected you.
And then of course you know hergoing through the health problems that she went
through. What did that do asfar as what kind of an impact?
Kind of relay some of those stories, because I just remember that being so
(14:48):
yeah, so tough for anybody thatplayed for her, anybody that knows,
oh yeah. I don't know whenthis happened, but I'll start with the
alzheimer. So I'm in Knoxville inAugust of year that she announced it.
I think she announced it five sixweeks later, but I happened to be
in Knoxville at the time, justvisiting, and I you know, she's
always great. The house is openand she has a bunk house open.
(15:09):
Former players go there. You justlet her know. I just think that's
so cool. When you're coming.Okay, yeah, great, house is
open. You know, we'll seeyou tomorrow. So I was there and
was trying to we were trying tomeet with her, and I said,
hey, Patt, I know you'rereally busy, blah blah blah, but
it was interesting. She goes,well, call me at this time.
And there was this silence on thephone and I had no idea what was
going on. I'm like, oh, no, she might be mad that,
(15:30):
you know. I'm thinking she's madbecause I want to meet or if
you have time, And she goescall me at this time. And then
there was a couple other former playersand we finally got it together. We
went to her house to have dinner. So we get there and her whole
staff's there, all her neighbors arethere, several former players, me and
then some of the people in Knoxville. And we get ready to have dinner,
(15:52):
which she cooked for all these peopleat her house. Wow. And
I've never seen her uncontrollably sobbing likethis. She says, Grace, and
she tells us all that she's gotthe early onset. We're all just like
whoa. And it was pretty powerfulto I'm getting emotional now, but I've
never seen her so, you know, you think of her as this stoic
(16:18):
stoic, all powerful, like nothinglike that. To see her uncontrollably sobbing
there was really powerful. And thenthen what she was telling us was just
like wow. And then you goback and do all the research on it
and things like that. But onceagain, never felt sorry for herself.
(16:38):
She goes, oh, I'm gonnabattle this and I'm not gonna feel sorry.
So that was a few weeks before, so it was like, I
don't think anyone expected her to saythat to anybody, because everybody then said,
you can't say anything because her teamdoesn't know yet we knew about it.
I think a few people had known. But it was nice that she
had trusted us there her neighbors,absolutely some former players to tell us that
(17:00):
and broke the ice with you guysa little bit. Yeah. Yeah,
and man, just from her upuntil that point when I first got my
job, my first head coaching jobat San Francisco, Yeah, come on
out, you know, I said, I don't know offense defense. Well,
we're having this summit Labor Day weekend. So Kelly Harper, who is
now the coach, she was atChattanooga at the time, and her husband
they were out there, Harry Perettterwho used to coach at Villanova, So
(17:22):
a bunch of coaches were there.Come on out and stay with her and
we do this chalk talk of offensedefense and everything invites me out and wow,
you know, just always is goingto be there, call me anytime.
And during that weekend, we shestayed up with me until midnight,
her and I splitting a bottle ofwine. And I'm at forty five at
the time, and you know,for her to take time, and I'm
(17:45):
one of one hundred and sixty one, and I think there's many more stories
of what she's done with former orwith former players or for former players.
Absolutely pretty amazing. Yeah, remarkable. Really, I know that she would
take that time, yea. Andhow she's affected throughout all the years too,
is just unsurable. So when youget done at Tennessee, you graduate.
(18:06):
I do graduate year. Actually playeda fifth care of volleyball. Oh
I saw the two years of volleyball. Okay, so freshman and last.
Yes, so you get five yearsto play two sports. And it's still
the case today. So I'm like, well, I kind of adjusted my
major as a sophomore, and Itook less classes during basketball for reason,
so I didn't have to worry asmuch about school. So another year of
(18:30):
school and the volleyball coach said,yeah, come back and play. Oh
my gosh, that's fun. I'llplay the fifth year and we got to
the NCAA tournament. We won theSEC championship. It was awesome. Oh
that's so fun. So you didn'tplay basketball at all your fifth year,
No, because my eligibility in basketballwas up. So what I would do
volleyball was in the fall. Patwould have us come back and we'd go
practice against the Okay, you stayin shape, Okay, good. We'd
(18:52):
be practice playing because then you goon to a fourteen year career professionally.
That's all overseas after graduation. Yes, right, because professional basketball there was
no w an exist. I meanthere were leagues here and there that,
but they were so unstable they weren'tgoing to last. And so the stability,
if you wanted to go play atall, it was you had to
(19:12):
go overseas, and it was Italyand France where the big yes lea in
Spain, Australia. I was inSpain, Australia, Sweden. Yeah,
so I started out in France.That's amazing. And now I heard that
you're fluent in Italian? Is thatright? French? I was in France
the longest. I cannot can speaksome Italian. No, it's been twenty
years. But I was able toget myself where I was dreaming thinking in
(19:33):
French. It was crazy. Ohmy good because I was over there ten
months out of the year, soI became pretty fluent. And I'm not
that now. I think I'm backthere for a couple of weeks. It
would it would come back to youquickly, half a bottle of wine and
there you go, little wine andcheese and everything like that. Yeah,
so you're a twelve time All Starwhen you're over there overseas. What was
that experience like? And I talkedto a lot of NFL guys from the
(19:56):
past when there was NFL Europe andthey would get over there and they're like
it was the best thing in theworld, just the people over there and
just getting into the cultures. Whatwas it like for you. So I
was the typical bad American my firstyear. I'm not here to speak French.
I'm the American. I was theTips. I mean, it was
quintessential bad American. And I'm like, I'm not doing this again. But
(20:21):
I had a really good year.We played well. I'm a good team.
And then I came back here andI'm like, you know what,
I just haven't given this a chance. So I grew up a little bit,
little immature, little immaturity, andthen when I went back, immersed
myself in the culture, immersed myselfin the language, and everything opened up
for me. And after that itwas a great experience. Now you didn't
make a ton of money, butyou get to play basketball. You get
(20:41):
to see the world and experience adifferent culture, and they pay you to
do it. That's amazing. Soit was really great every place. You
know, everyone says what was yourfavorite place? And I'm like, I
don't know if I have a favoriteplace because there were so many great places.
You know, I got to livein Paris, I've lived in Melbourne,
I've lived in Madrid. You know, I've lived not too far from
Stockholm, Sweden. So I'm paidto do that. Yeah, and you
(21:04):
played basketball. You know. Oneof my former colleagues he said that,
you know, it's a fourteen yearof paid vacation. It was paid vacation.
I'm like, kind of yah,that's a great way to look at
it. Yeah, it was great. I got to come home in the
summer. So that's really cool.So the WNBA starts in nineteen ninety seven,
just as you're kind of finishing upyour your pro career. We were
(21:26):
chatting before this, and you hada tryout with one of the very first
teams in that very first year,I did with the Washington Mystics. Nancy
darsh was the coach of the teamat the time, and she was my
assistant at Tennessee when I was there. So I called her up and I
said, well, let's give ita try and see what it. What
I had is experience, Yeah,you can come out and try out.
And then we went through the tryoutsand it was it's pretty clear that you
(21:48):
know, these were twenty three twentyfive year olds that were hungry, and
I kind of saw my old selfand them, and I'm like, I
just I'm glad I tried. AndNancy was very gracious and letting me try
out. So that was kind ofthe end of it, and just kind
of My brother lives in DC,so I've staying with him and from the
gym and I just walked home andI'm like, yeah, I think this
is it riding the subway and thatwas that was the retirement of me playing
(22:11):
basketball. So it was very Yeah, it was very very subtle, I
guess you could say, but I'mlike I just realized. I'm like,
yeah, it's time to it's timefor the next chapter. And I always
knew I wanted to coach, soso how soon do you go into coaching?
Well, I had talked to LindaRonig, who was the head coach
at Regis at the time, theyear before my last year, and hey,
(22:32):
I really want to coach because Ione thing I'd noticed living overseas is
you spend a lot of time inanother country, you kind of get immersed
in that culture. I would comehome after about seventy eight years and be
feel like a stranger in my owncountry. So I did a lot of
reading research on crossing cultures, likewhat's happening here? It was a really
(22:52):
strange feeling. It's a strange feelingto feel like a stranger in your own
country when you're quote home, andit was a really normal feeling. One
of the recommendations was when you comeback, when you know you're coming back
for good. Now, that wouldn'tlast long. It's six weeks or seven
weeks, but so I would reacclimate, but just in time for me to
go over to her again. Absolutely, So you're getting bounced around and as
(23:15):
you When you're young, it's great, but when you get older, like
in my mid thirties, it washarder. I didn't not have my group
of friends. It was always Iwas just kind of a nomad and that's
fun for a while, but it'syeah, if you can't come home and
catch up, yeah, that wouldbe a weird, weird place to be.
Yeah, And it was I knewat the end, I'm like,
okay. So one of the suggestionswas when you do go home, go
(23:37):
to a home or a place thatyou're really comfortable at. So that was
Denver so Regis University. She thoughtshe was going to have an opening that
next year or so. I didinterview and it was fortunate enough to get
that job. So that was myfirst coaching job at Regis University just right
away, and it was awesome,and Linda was a great mentor, a
great first head coach, very outstandingcoach to work for. And then two
(24:02):
years later Seal has an opening andI kept in touch with Seal. Actually
i'd known Seal for the first mether in eighty six, worked camps and
you know, i'd just gotten backfor my first time in overseas in this
wrote her and said, hey,I'm from Colorado. I would love to
maybe think about getting into coaching.So I knew then I kind of wanted
(24:23):
to coach. And so she callsme and I get out and work camp.
And so we'd kept in touch.And then I don't know if you
remember Isabelle Fiedelkowski from France. Idon't. So she's the one that was
on that Elite eight team that almostwent to the Final four. Okay,
she had her for a year six' four, really good player. Well,
she was in France and we playedagainst her and she goes, hey,
I want to go to the States. Can help me. I said,
(24:45):
yeah, So I call Pat andshe goes, I've I already have
six posts. I'm like, whosays that she says, I have enough
post. This was a national teamplayer exactly. Oh my god, I
said. So. My next callwas to Seal. I said, Seel,
let me come out and see thiskid. And she sent her assistant
and they loved her. And sheended up and she only had one year
of eligibility, which is a shamebecause she was very good. So through
all that I kept in touch withSeal all through the years, and she
(25:08):
knew that I eventually wanted to coach. So in two thousand and one she
had an opening and interviewed and Iwas able to get the job and was
with her for four years from oneto five until she retired. If she's
coaching today, I'm still probably acall run. Do you think so?
Oh? I think so? Oh? Wow? Was that great? Yes?
Didn't remind you of Pat A lotof ways? Yeah, A lot
(25:30):
of ways that she reminded me alot of things that she did. She
was very much like I can seethat lot, very much like that.
Yeah, And she gave me suchgreat experience and every facet of a program
I was in charge of at somepoint during my four years there. You
know, I started off the lowman on the totem pole, I was
doing sleeping in the dorm for campand running camp and doing all that.
(25:52):
Then recruiting coordinator, so I gotto see every part of a which is
so important. Yes, really whenyou run the program, Yes, because
it is very different doing just onejob as opposed to being the CEO and
overseeing everything. Yes, Yes,which you found out, You do find
out, you do find out.I mean, I think she kind of
(26:14):
left a little before her time,but she still had an amazing career.
Absolutely, just an amazing, amazingcoach. Yeah, And what she told
me is that she just she realizedthat I'm not finding as much joy in
it, which is what If youget to that point, then it is
time to do something different. Andshe was kind of ready to do some
other things. And she's done amazingwork in the athletic department, yes,
in general and helping even more athletes, which is great. Absolutely, She's
(26:37):
certainly a pioneer, championing, championeechampioning. Right. Yeah, there we
go. So's that Tennessee education kickingin there. Communication, communication, especially
communications at Tennessee. All right,so Seal retires, You go to DU
for a year as an assistant workfor Pam Tanner was great. I didn't
(26:57):
know that I wanted to be ahead coach at some point and the job
at San Francisco came open. Ihad done so much recruiting in the years
I was at CU in California,and I always fly to San Francisco and
be like, this reminds me alot of Europe. So still had a
little bit of the European synecees.Reminds me a lot of Europe. If
(27:18):
this job ever came open, thiswould be a great place to be so
interviewed. And I did get thejob, and I think Seal was a
big help in that. But gotthat job unfortunately did not work out.
I just feel like I didn't geta handle on who to recruit to San
Francisco in time and ended up losingthe job after four years. Our years.
(27:40):
Yeah, what did you learn asa head coach from that first position?
It's trial by error trying to figureout how do you control the whole
thing and look over everything when you'vebeen an assistant for so long. And
we see it happened so often wherecoordinators in the NFL go to the head
coach and it's a disaster because theyjust don't know how to do the whole
thing, yes, and I thinkthat was part of it. I think
(28:03):
the biggest thing for me was therecruiting, not knowing who to recruit.
But I think I made some mistakeswith staff, and as I would talk
to other head coaches, a lotof the mistakes are very common. Or
you don't know what you don't know. And I think about what I know
today versus what I was doing backthen, I'm like, sure, of
(28:23):
course, no one thought I knewwhat the hell I was doing, because
I didn't when it was a blindleading the blind. Or you just don't
know what you don't know. Soof course I would do a lot of
different things. But if there's onething that I blame it on and it's
all comes back to me, wouldbe recruiting. We just didn't recruit good
enough players. I mean, anyof it. I'll tell you that you
(28:44):
don't have to have the players.You can be a great coach. If
you do not have players, it'snot going to you don't have those six
posts just sitting there, the sixthposts, four of them sitting on your
bench, then you have no problemsexactly, just fine. Or you recruit
Candas Parker or you know Shamikh,the Holts or things like that. Absolutely,
So when you do get let gofrom there, how does it happen?
(29:04):
And are you crushed and feeling likeyou can't go on? Or do
you do the whole don't feel sorryfor yourself, moving on getting something else.
I felt sorry for myself for abouta week, and then I heard
Pat's voice and I actually talked withher, talk with Seal. The original
thought was the conventional wisdom was Okay, go back and be an assistant at
(29:25):
Division one. And I didn't knowif I wanted to do that. I
wasn't sure what I wanted to do. You know, I could have taken
a year off, go around,watch people practice. You know, the
basketball piece for me has never beenthe problem. I mean, it may
sound arrogant, but I can coach. The coaching piece is not that difficult
really, right, It's I don'tfeel basketball. It's basketball. It's managing
players, managing your staff, recruitingthe players, things like that. Culture,
(29:48):
it's all the other stuff that doesn'thappen during the game. Correct.
And so it was interesting about aweek, maybe two weeks after I had
been let go, Joan McDermott,who was the ad at Metro State at
the time, calls me up andsays, I'm going to be in San
Francisco and she's originally from San Francisco. So I met her. That was
(30:10):
when Linda Lappie was going to getthe job at CEU. Oh yeah,
at the time, So that wasthe timing there. So we met and
I talked with her about, youknow, what I thought had gone wrong,
and I think she wanted to know. And later on she had told
me that you know the fact thatyou took so much accountability and it is
there's no question about it that youknow. But I was devastated, no
(30:32):
question. What I will say afterthat happened is it was a great testament
to the coaching profession. I hadso many coaches in the WCC where I
was competing. I had lunch withone of them and he said, Tanya,
we're all one year away from whereyou are, so we all understand
that. And that support that Igot from other coaches was really touching to
(30:55):
me. Wow, And that said, okay, then I definitely want to
go on. But anyway, wetalked with Joan. The process takes long
enough. Her process to hire acoach took long enough because I wasn't really
sure at the time what I wantedto do. So it happened in March.
She had me come out in Mayand I still wasn't completely sure.
But you know, and I didn'tknow anything about division two. The committee,
(31:17):
it is like, what do youknow about division two? And now
knowing here what we're looking for it, I'm thinking I completely bombed this with
the committee, right with the committee, like do you know what life and
the balances? Or no? No, no, but here's my handbook or
what I really it was. Youdidn't pass. I can't. I didn't
pass with them. Here's where Idid pass is I met with two players
(31:44):
after that, and one of themhappened to be the All American point guard,
and they had all kinds of questionsfor me, and I said,
I know I can get you toa championship. I said that to him,
and I passed with them. Ipassed with Joan because Joan wanted to
hire me, but I knew Ihadn't done it with the committee. So
I go back home and I'm like, I don't even know what I'm going
(32:05):
to do. I don't even knowif I'm gonna get this job. So
another week passes and I'm actually drivingdown to play in a golf tournament at
Stanford. And I know Tara.I'm good friends with Tara. So I
called Tara up and I said,hey, have a few minutes advice.
She met with me, another greatmentor of me. Now I'm glad that
she is the one who passed Pat'swins record, which is awesome. And
(32:29):
she's just like, you know,you can go back and be a head
coach. You can get some moreexperience. You know, That's what she
should do. And so I goand play the golf tournament. And then
I'm driving back up to San Franciscofrom Stanford and I called Joan and I
go to Joan. I said,Joan, do you really want to hire
me? She hadn't offered me.She's so the thing she'd offered me the
job, and I'm like, Idon't want to pity or anything of that.
(32:51):
And I know Joan wouldn't do that. If you don't know Joan McDermott,
she's not making a pity higher yeah, And so she goes, I
want you, and if you turnthe job down, I am going to
reopen the job and go back inthe pool. If you don't take the
job, I said, I'll callyou in the morning. And then I
thought about it, and I said, look, I get the chance to
(33:12):
go home. You know, it'sbeen great as my parents have gotten older.
I get to go home. Noteverybody gets to choose where they get
to coach. I get to bea head coach and learn from the mistakes.
Really had turned it into a growthopportunity to say, Okay, I
know where I made my mistakes,so I can fix those mistakes. And
I'm getting an opportunity to do that. So I called her the next morning
(33:32):
and I took the job. Itwas a great decision. I mean because
you might think, okay, divisionone, division two, but head coaching
is head coaching. You maybe haveto manage a few more people at division
one, but you're still in chargeof it. It was a great decision,
and that first year we were armacchamps. We went thirty and three,
We won the region, blown everythingout of the water. Thank you
(33:54):
to Linda. Lappie left me somereally good kids. But the kid that
really got us the top was CassandraBratton, who came out of retirement and
played, and she was the mostvaluable player in the region. We should
have been in the final four thatyear at the lead eight, but that
was where lightning just struck that year, and the kids had bought into everything.
(34:14):
They were so gritty team, theydidn't care about there was no drama
and we just kept winning. Wewould win games, maybe forty six to
forty five, but we would win, and everybody, well, you're not
that good. Well we must bepretty good because we still win. We're
still winning. And it was justjust a team that I think the stars
aligned and it was amazing. Andwe had three or four amazing years after
(34:35):
that, and he just built on, built on, built on, Yes,
you know, and that when wehad to start over with some younger
kids in there. But then forthe most part, I've had some pretty
good sustains success fourteen years and counting, Yes, which is crazy. Yes,
it's been a really great place.I got to say this about Division
you know, first few years itwas like, oh, I want to
get back to Division one, wantto get back to Division one. But
(34:55):
the longer that I was here waslike saw Division two that it's really remarkably
for those that don't know high levelof play. And really the biggest difference
is that kids are a little bitbigger, maybe a little more athletic,
but there's a lot of skill inDivision two, remarkably high. And then
the other piece was MSU Denver orMetro State, what their values of that
(35:17):
university were, and who were educatingin the athletic department and overall there's some
great stories of rebirth, yes andthings like that, and just to see
that and maybe some people that wouldn'tget educated otherwise, that's just going to
help all of us. So howmuch I really appreciate that kind of that
(35:38):
blue collar, grinded out place thatMetro is. So I've really come to
appreciate that, and that's why I'mstill there absolutely well. And I think
there's a lot to be said aboutDivision two, whether it be Metro State
or any Division two program. Thoseare the kids that come in with chips
on their shoulder a lot of timesbecause they didn't find something at Division one,
they were denied or whatever, andso they're like, all right,
(36:00):
I'm going to go prove myself here. So you get that blue collar,
that gritty athlete that then is probablythere for an education as well. Because
they're not going to go on andplay professionally most often, and so they're
also getting their education, and youjust you find a different type of person
and then if you can create thatgreat culture with them, sky's the limit.
(36:20):
Yes, now it is. It'sgreat. You know, all our
programs are doing so well at Metro. I mean we had a down year,
but I expect us to be backnext year. But it is you
get a kid that's different. Theireducation is important, you know, and
other things. And for me,who was so single minded in school,
and to see other parts of thesekids and really enjoy, really appreciate other
(36:40):
parts of kids, it's been funfor me. I bet it. It's
been eye opening because again it waspretty single minded about okay, the highest
level and blah blahlah. But yousee this and you can still do it
at a high level and really appreciatesome of these some of the players that
we've recruited and they've gone on,the kids that we've had have gone on
in really great things. I loveit all. Right, Well, you
are in during your time while you'vebeen coaching, you go into the Colorido
(37:04):
Sports Hall of Fame. You gointo the Tennessee Lady Balls Hall of Fame.
You're in multiple halls of fame,your high school hall of fame?
What's been one of the cooler momentsfor you? Now? As you look
back, and like we said atthe very beginning, you were surprised at
a couple of the ones that youdon't really think about when you're in high
school. But as you look back, are there ones that stand out more
than others? Of like that wasI never thought i'd be there. Probably
(37:24):
the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.Yeah, just because of who's in that.
I mean, just look at thiscrazy you know, Mike, what
am I doing here? I wasactually coaching at CU when they gave me
the letter. I was in thefilm room, still gave me the letter.
It was awesome, And Joni Brooklynis the one who nominated I don't
(37:45):
know Jony Brooklyn. And then theygave me a letter that Pat had written
for that Oh she wrote a yeah, she wrote a letter recommendation. So
to see all that was special.Just again that who's in that Hall of
fame? Like keep going, Ikeep pinching myself what am I doing there?
So that was really a special night. I bet. Yeah, it's
(38:06):
cool and I'm so honored. Iget to MC that event with Dave Logan
every year and then when we haveeverybody up on the dais and I just
look around, I'm like, mygod, it's it's amazing the people that
are in that and you belong inthat, Tanya, definitely thank you.
Well, it's a great honor.And you know the High School Hall of
Fame, it was in National HighSchool Hall of Fame was in Maui.
(38:27):
I had a great time there.Yeah, someone had to do it,
so it happened to be the yearwhere it was in Maui. But I
still would go back to the ColoradoSports Hall of Fame just because as a
native and what that means. Anddo find out that the majority of my
time, even though I went overseasand played at Tennessee and every it is
about Colorado and Colorado is definitely myhome. All Right, last question for
(38:49):
you, Tanya, that I askall of my guests. Everybody goes through
ups and downs and there's a firingor there's just you know, down years.
What do you tell people? Whatdo you tell your student athletes?
And there are those down times?And I know you refer back to Pat
don't feel sorry for yourself, Buthow do you kind of counsel people?
I think another one of my hatsas a coach is I probably have a
PhD in counseling. With some ofthe things that players go through today,
(39:14):
especially the last few years coming outof COVID and everything else in the world
just becoming a little more complex,is a lot of them. I said,
you're not alone, because a lotof people think that, oh,
this is only happening to me.I've been guilty of it, and I'm
like, oh, that's right,I'm not alone. We're all in this
together. We're all human, weall have the same emotions, the same
(39:35):
fears. That's the biggest thing isthat you're not alone and you're going to
get through this. A PhD incounseling probably not that smart, but well,
just from the experiences. And thenwhen you deal with women, and
sometimes we tend to get emotional,and we have all kinds of things that
are going on, and we alltry and take on way too much,
whether it be we have so manyroles that we have to take on,
and so you do probably end upcounseling a lot. I do, And
(40:00):
sometimes I know when I'm in overmy head. It's like, so fortunately
we have a great counseling center.But for people that that players, hey,
you're not alone, You're this isreally typical. The biggest thing is
when freshmen come in is that they'reso overwhelmed with the intensity of the workouts,
the intensity of school, that beingaway from home and everything in the
world's been blown up. And yeah, I'm like, this is really typical
(40:20):
because they think that this is sooverwhelming, like what you're going through is
really normal, and you're gonna befine. It's gonna be okay, it's
gonna be okay, Okay, itis good. All right, Tanya,
thank you so much for the time. Thank you. This has really been
an honor and I really appreciate this. It's great and a great way.
I mean, you're just one ofthose one of those women. You do
belong in every single thing that you'vebeen nominated to and that you've been inducted
(40:42):
to, and it's just fun tohave you in for this. Well,
thank you so much. Well you'reon the Hall of Fame for me to
the podcast Hall of Fame podcast Hallof Fame someday. Right, all right,
thanks Tanya. Thanks so much,Tanya. New episodes of Cut,
Traded, Fired, Retired come outevery Tuesday on nearly every podcast platform.
Get social with the podcast on Twitterand Instagram at ctfur podcast, and check
(41:06):
out the website ctfurpodcast dot com.I'm your host, Susie Wargen. To
learn more about me, visit Susiewargendot com. Thanks so much for listening,
and until next time, please becareful, be safe, and be
kind. Take care
We went to her house to havedinner. So if we get there and
whole staff's there, all her neighborsare there, several former players, me,
and then some of the people inKnoxville. I've never seen her uncontrollably
sobbing like this, but she saysgrace, and she tells us all that
she's got the early onset, andit was pretty powerful to I'm getting emotional
(00:24):
now. Welcome to Cut, Traded, Fired, Retired, a weekly podcast
featuring conversations with professional athletes and coacheswho have experienced being cut, traded,
fired, and or they're retired.I'm your host, Susie Wargen. This
episode's guest has her name in numeroushall of fames, including the Colorado Sports
Hall of Fame, Tennessee Lady Vall'sHall of Fame, and the National High
(00:47):
School Hall of Fame. Not toobad for a product of Little Evergreen High
School, or at least it waslittle when Tanya Hobby was there in the
late seventies. Tanya's basketball dream startedwhen she was watching the women's team play
in the nineteen seventies six Olympics,and then when she grew to six foot
two her sophomore year of high school, her path seemed to be a yellow
brick road. She won the SteinmarckAward and played on two national championship teams
(01:11):
under Pat Summit. Unfortunately, theWNBA had informed when Tanya graduated from Tennessee,
so she went across the Atlantic andwas a twelve time All Star in
fourteen seasons overseas. When she cameback to the States for good, she
started coaching almost immediately. A coupleof assistant jobs led to a head coaching
gig in San Francisco, where,after four lackluster seasons, she got fired.
(01:34):
In twenty ten, the athletic directorat Metro State University saw something else
in Tanya, and she offered herthe head coaching gig at MSU. She's
been there ever since and has rackedup a number of accolades in the process.
Ladies and gentlemen, Tanya Hovey cutTraded Fired retired podcast with Susie Wargin.
Hello, Tanya Hovey, how youdoing. I'm great? How were
(01:57):
you, Susie? I'm good.It's so excited to have you in here.
I was telling you the females Ineed more females on the podcast.
You're now the second one next toSeal. That's pretty good company. Actually
there I saw. I'm extremely honored. Yeah, well, and you deserve
field there. What a legend,Yeah, legend. I don't even know
that does it justice? But yes, I know. Yeah, she's amazing
(02:17):
and her episode, for those thathaven't listened to it, is pretty spectacular.
You have such a storied career,both between your time as a high
schooler here in Colorado to when youwent to Tennessee to playing professionally to now
what you're doing as a coach.So we're going to kind of go through
all of that. You were sucha legend, speaking of legends at Evergreen
(02:38):
High School, I mean growing upyou were volleyball and basketball and just an
outstanding athlete in both of those sports. Talk about growing up, I mean
Evergreen's pretty small, right, that'syes? So yeah, yeah, were
you born here? You're a native, right or I was from somewhere else,
So born in Denver, lived inArvada for a little while. I
(03:00):
moved to Evergreen when I was infirst grade. My dad got transferred one
year when I was in third grade, but then we came back to Evergreen
and then I was there and youknow, all through high school and this
is the seventies. How did youget into sports? Yeah, it's so
funny. I just was watching thenineteen seventy six Olympics and that was the
(03:20):
first year that they had women's basketballin the Olympics. I'm sitting there with
my dad and just watching it,just thinking, wow, how awesome to
represent your country. And was startingto like basketball. I think it was
fourteen, you know, I wasenjoying basketball playing it, and I just
thought, wow, it just kindof lit the fire in me. I
really wanted to do well. Startedsetting goals and the goal actually was to
(03:44):
be on an Olympic team. AndI can get to that a little bit
later, but that kind of startedit all with the basketball and volleyball just
kind of got thrown into it.You know, Low Hunter from Evergreen.
She was more of the basketball.She was my basketball and volleyball coach,
but it was more about the volleyball. Oh interesting, Oh yeah, she
was. You know, she ledwon those nine or eight I can't remember
how many state championships. Oh,it was ridiculous what you guys did in
(04:04):
volleyball. Yeah, and so westarted that streak when I was a junior
in high school. But it startedthen in nineteen seventy six, when I
was just going to be a freshman, just I really want to excel and
do well, and it was mypassion. It was just my passion.
Did you have your height at thatpoint, did you know was taller and
able to do this well? Yeah? I was five eight at the time,
(04:28):
and then between my eighth and ninthgrade year, I grew like four
inches. And then when I wasa sophomore, then I was at six
' two. Oh my gosh.And then everybody's like, yeah, you're
going to play for us. Yeah, and then I was taller than all
the boys, because you know,boys tend to be. But by the
time there were seniors that everybody hadcaught up to me. All the boys
had, but I was taller andtall and lanky. Yeah, a lot
of arms and legs at the time. Yeah, well, as you tend
(04:51):
to be in high school. Andthen we changed as we get older.
So your three years in high schoolthere at Evergreen, your basketball team goes
sixty and ten, volleyball goes sixtyseven and nine. You didn't lose a
lot of games. You had alot of winning. As a high school
player. I mean, just tolook at those records, it's unbelievable what
you guys did when you were inhigh school. Yeah, and I think
(05:12):
you owe that a lot too.Low. Yeah, she knew how to
coach athletes, and she was ascompetitive as they came. I mean this
was way before her time. Wewere we would get up at six in
the morning, from six to sevenbefore class, we were in there practicing,
whether it be basketball or volleyball,and I just remember I'm dragging around.
I am so tired. But wepractice and practice and practice, and
(05:35):
then we would practice after school.Then you just got good and she was
not going to accept losing. SoI think you owe that a lot,
and I think that's important. Youknow, you'd come from a good high
school program and then I was extremelyprivileged to go to a really great collegiate
program. Yes as well, butyeah, you get used to winning and
(05:55):
it's it's fun. It is.Oh. Absolutely. You graduate in nineteen
eighty that year you are the ColoradoSports the first female high school athlete of
the Year. Now at the ColoroSports Bank where we have a male and
a female, but they hadn't hada female before that. So you get
that your Sportswoman of the Year becauseof everything that you do with volleyball and
basketball your senior year and you're theSteinmarcker Award winner, all these great accolades
(06:19):
coming at you as you graduate.Did it hit you at all that Wow,
I kind of got it going on, like, you're the first female
to do a lot of these amazingthings, and to get some of those
awards as a senior in high schoolis just incredible. Yeah, guys,
listening to that now, I'm like, wow, oh, you're starting to
hear about it now. I wasvery honored with this Hall of Fame one,
(06:42):
all of them, all of them. It didn't really hit me because
I was just so focused on Okay, then what's the next thing. Yeah,
I didn't. I had a greattime in high school, but then
I was I tended to be Okay, this is nice. Now we got
to move on, and I wantedto enjoy it. But it didn't hit
me like gosh, kind of likeit just hit me now. I guess
as I get older, right,you're like, oh, yeah, that
was cool. You know. Ididn't think about it like that at the
(07:05):
time, that, yeah, thisis a nice thing. And then what's
next, right, I'm just thinkingwhat's next. How many schools recruited you
aside from Tennessee. Well, Ihad a lot of schools looking for both
volleyball back like so, Pacific Universitywas the top five program in volleyball.
They were gonna let me play basketball. Basketball was more of my focus and
(07:27):
gosh, I don't know, Ihave stacks did trips at that time.
Yeah, well, so date myselfagain. AIAW was the it was before
the NCAA that was the governing bodythat was oversaw women's sports, so you
couldn't pay for official visits in nineteenseventy nine or eighty. So my mom
took me on a trip down toTennessee, Georgia and North Carolina State,
(07:53):
and then I went to Louisiana Techon another one in Texas. But I'd
say total schools Gosha maybe one hundred. And that was before recruiting got what
it is today. I mean,recruiting isn't that. It was still crazy,
but it wasn't like it is today. But they're sending you letters in
the mail. How did you siftthrough them? I'm always curious how you
kind of figured out where you wantedto go. I knew that I really
(08:16):
wanted a high level program, whetherit be volleyball. I pretty much knew
I wanted to play basketball. Butwhat really kind of got my interest is
I was getting letters from all theseschools, but it was low. Hunter
came up to me in the hallwayone day and I wasn't asking her to
help me, but she goes,I think I found the school for you,
(08:37):
and it was a letter from Pat, and hey, this is what
we've got. And I'm like,goh, this is kind of intriguing.
And then I read more about herand then started communicating and then we came
out. My mom and I wentout and visited and we watched him play
Louisiana Tech, which back in theday that was Kim Molkey played at Louisiana
Tech Holy Cas So that was beforeyou know, all the Power five.
(08:58):
Louisiana Tech Old Dominion, they werethe powers in women's basketball in the late
seventies early eighties. So we watchedthem play them in Knoxville. Wow,
and they won by two. Andeverything about Pat, you know, the
professionalism, everything like that, youknow, And I was a para at
all American, so I don't knowshe knew about me and wrote the letter.
Don't know if she was exactly sure, But when she came to pick
(09:20):
me up and yeah, our volleyballcoach says, you're really good at volleyball
too, And I said, well, could I play both? Yeah,
we could try it, you know, so I was ended up going there.
You know, just everything that shetalked about in the recruiting process,
about you know, winning national championships, you know, being all Americans.
You don't want those individual awards,but I said, you know, eventually
(09:41):
would gosh, I would hope tocompete to be on the Olympic team one
day. So we talked about allthose things. So it ended up working
out where she said, Okay,I signed the basketball scholarship because you couldn't
split scholarships at that point. ButI did play volleyball my freshman year,
so she let me do both.I think the volleyball coach can vincer.
She hadn't seen me play a lot, she'd seen me play a little,
(10:03):
she knew I was. I thinkwhat he said. I don't know this,
but I think what he said is, hey, if she doesn't work
out in basketball, I know she'sgoing to work out in volleyball, you
know, because I was like anhonorable mentional, honorable mention All American in
volleyball my freshman year. So that'skind of how that came about. But
I went on the visit for basketball, and everything Pat said resonated with you,
(10:26):
didn't it. Oh, it wasjust I was enthralled with her.
Not yeah exactly. And I've heardyou speak about her. You spoke at
the Sportswoman of Colorado banquet and justhad these words about her. Seal talked
about her. I mean, everybodythat has ever had any kind of relationship
with Pat just talks about what anamazing, amazing coach. And that has
to have helped you as you've goneon later in life as a coach as
(10:48):
well. But as a player,What did she do for you? When
you're at Tennessee, you guys makethree Final four appearances, your national champion
twice. The work ethic and thecommitment, And it's so funny, my
immature when I was in college,I hate that word commitment. She'd always
use it, you know, justfighting back a little bit. But now
I'm using that word a lot.But the work ethic and not that I
(11:09):
was fighting the commitment, but justyou know, being the immature oh yeah,
college college kid in you're nineteen twenty. Yeah. The other thing observing
her, not only when we werein school, because we had some struggles
a couple of years where we werewinning ten games and we're in the national
championship game, that you're never goingto feel sorry for yourself. I had
a good example of that in myfather as well, but from her,
(11:31):
from a professional standpoint, she's notgoing to feel sorry for herself. And
I find myself saying that, especiallywe had a really rough year this year
at MSU Denver at Metro, andwe're not feeling sorry for ourselves. We're
going to go out and we're goingto continue to fight. So I think
that fighting spirit from her being ina game. Yeah, no excuses,
(11:52):
anything like that. The ex'es ando's. It was funny she was here
recruiting in Colorado a few years ago. When she's recruiting, Annstruther and I
went picked her up and we wentto the game and gosh, I really
appreciate everything you've done, and shegoes, I didn't know anything back then.
Then. I said, no,you knew more than you thought you
did. But she was teasing withme that you know, I didn't know
anything. Then I'm like, well, you knew quite a bit. So
(12:13):
from that point, from an nextof Tho's standpoint, surely the game has
changed tremendously, but programmatically from aculture standpoint, those things, those are
things that resonate with me and thatI find myself saying to them to players
quite a bit. Yeah, becauseplays are plays, and the game changes
so much, and you can doall you want to on the court,
but it's what you have as aculture that I think is so so,
(12:35):
so so important in any sport,but in basketball, especially because it's such
a tight group. Yes, absolutely, I mean you always hear the same
culture, eat strategy. You canhave all the plays you want, you
do whatever, Hey, you gottahave players, and then you've got to
have players that are buying in orthat they trust and you trust them and
vice versa. So yeah, absolutely, those are the things that have Those
are timeless lessons that I learned fromher. Absolutely, you are all sec
(13:01):
You're all American, the first allAmerican that the volunteers had. Did you
know that I didn't know? Yeah, I read that. Yeah, I'm
assuming for women's basketball. I didnot know that. Yeah, that was
I've looked through everything. Oh mygosh, I'm impressed with the research.
You leave the school as the alltime leading score that has since been broken,
but you are also a academic.You get an Academic Excellence award.
(13:24):
So obviously the sport was important,but so were the academics. Did Pat
instill that too as far as academicsgo, or was that just something that
you Well, I was a goodstudent in high school, but I picked
my school based on the basketball program, right, you know, for better
or for worse, And it wasa good school. I mean I wanted
to I thought I wanted to bea journalist, start out in journalism and
(13:46):
then switched to communications. So theschooling was always important. But it was
important to Pat as well when sheleft. You know, not everybody that
played there graduated, but everyone thatfinished their eligibility there left with their degree.
Now in the technical terms of howthe NCAA might do it, but
everyone who finished their eligibility there gottheir degree. Wow. I think it
(14:07):
was really important to her. Imean, she's there on graduation day,
she meets with your parents, youknow, and she's passed that on to
me because graduation day for me nowis one of the best days when our
kids graduating bed. You know,I remember one time tell my dad,
oh, I'm doing good enough.Well good enough isn't good enough? Like
school wise? He goes, youdon't want to be average. And so
I'd have to credit that with someof my parents as well. But Pat
(14:28):
was a big influence there. Youknow, you're going to get good grades.
When you spoke about Pat so eloquentlyat the banquet that I mentioned,
you talked about you know, laterin life and how she affected you.
And then of course you know hergoing through the health problems that she went
through. What did that do asfar as what kind of an impact?
Kind of relay some of those stories, because I just remember that being so
(14:48):
yeah, so tough for anybody thatplayed for her, anybody that knows,
oh yeah. I don't know whenthis happened, but I'll start with the
alzheimer. So I'm in Knoxville inAugust of year that she announced it.
I think she announced it five sixweeks later, but I happened to be
in Knoxville at the time, justvisiting, and I you know, she's
always great. The house is openand she has a bunk house open.
(15:09):
Former players go there. You justlet her know. I just think that's
so cool. When you're coming.Okay, yeah, great, house is
open. You know, we'll seeyou tomorrow. So I was there and
was trying to we were trying tomeet with her, and I said,
hey, Patt, I know you'rereally busy, blah blah blah, but
it was interesting. She goes,well, call me at this time.
And there was this silence on thephone and I had no idea what was
going on. I'm like, oh, no, she might be mad that,
(15:30):
you know. I'm thinking she's madbecause I want to meet or if
you have time, And she goescall me at this time. And then
there was a couple other former playersand we finally got it together. We
went to her house to have dinner. So we get there and her whole
staff's there, all her neighbors arethere, several former players, me and
then some of the people in Knoxville. And we get ready to have dinner,
(15:52):
which she cooked for all these peopleat her house. Wow. And
I've never seen her uncontrollably sobbing likethis. She says, Grace, and
she tells us all that she's gotthe early onset. We're all just like
whoa. And it was pretty powerfulto I'm getting emotional now, but I've
never seen her so, you know, you think of her as this stoic
(16:18):
stoic, all powerful, like nothinglike that. To see her uncontrollably sobbing
there was really powerful. And thenthen what she was telling us was just
like wow. And then you goback and do all the research on it
and things like that. But onceagain, never felt sorry for herself.
(16:38):
She goes, oh, I'm gonnabattle this and I'm not gonna feel sorry.
So that was a few weeks before, so it was like, I
don't think anyone expected her to saythat to anybody, because everybody then said,
you can't say anything because her teamdoesn't know yet we knew about it.
I think a few people had known. But it was nice that she
had trusted us there her neighbors,absolutely some former players to tell us that
(17:00):
and broke the ice with you guysa little bit. Yeah. Yeah,
and man, just from her upuntil that point when I first got my
job, my first head coaching jobat San Francisco, Yeah, come on
out, you know, I said, I don't know offense defense. Well,
we're having this summit Labor Day weekend. So Kelly Harper, who is
now the coach, she was atChattanooga at the time, and her husband
they were out there, Harry Perettterwho used to coach at Villanova, So
(17:22):
a bunch of coaches were there.Come on out and stay with her and
we do this chalk talk of offensedefense and everything invites me out and wow,
you know, just always is goingto be there, call me anytime.
And during that weekend, we shestayed up with me until midnight,
her and I splitting a bottle ofwine. And I'm at forty five at
the time, and you know,for her to take time, and I'm
(17:45):
one of one hundred and sixty one, and I think there's many more stories
of what she's done with former orwith former players or for former players.
Absolutely pretty amazing. Yeah, remarkable. Really, I know that she would
take that time, yea. Andhow she's affected throughout all the years too,
is just unsurable. So when youget done at Tennessee, you graduate.
(18:06):
I do graduate year. Actually playeda fifth care of volleyball. Oh
I saw the two years of volleyball. Okay, so freshman and last.
Yes, so you get five yearsto play two sports. And it's still
the case today. So I'm like, well, I kind of adjusted my
major as a sophomore, and Itook less classes during basketball for reason,
so I didn't have to worry asmuch about school. So another year of
(18:30):
school and the volleyball coach said,yeah, come back and play. Oh
my gosh, that's fun. I'llplay the fifth year and we got to
the NCAA tournament. We won theSEC championship. It was awesome. Oh
that's so fun. So you didn'tplay basketball at all your fifth year,
No, because my eligibility in basketballwas up. So what I would do
volleyball was in the fall. Patwould have us come back and we'd go
practice against the Okay, you stayin shape, Okay, good. We'd
(18:52):
be practice playing because then you goon to a fourteen year career professionally.
That's all overseas after graduation. Yes, right, because professional basketball there was
no w an exist. I meanthere were leagues here and there that,
but they were so unstable they weren'tgoing to last. And so the stability,
if you wanted to go play atall, it was you had to
(19:12):
go overseas, and it was Italyand France where the big yes lea in
Spain, Australia. I was inSpain, Australia, Sweden. Yeah,
so I started out in France.That's amazing. And now I heard that
you're fluent in Italian? Is thatright? French? I was in France
the longest. I cannot can speaksome Italian. No, it's been twenty
years. But I was able toget myself where I was dreaming thinking in
(19:33):
French. It was crazy. Ohmy good because I was over there ten
months out of the year, soI became pretty fluent. And I'm not
that now. I think I'm backthere for a couple of weeks. It
would it would come back to youquickly, half a bottle of wine and
there you go, little wine andcheese and everything like that. Yeah,
so you're a twelve time All Starwhen you're over there overseas. What was
that experience like? And I talkedto a lot of NFL guys from the
(19:56):
past when there was NFL Europe andthey would get over there and they're like
it was the best thing in theworld, just the people over there and
just getting into the cultures. Whatwas it like for you. So I
was the typical bad American my firstyear. I'm not here to speak French.
I'm the American. I was theTips. I mean, it was
quintessential bad American. And I'm like, I'm not doing this again. But
(20:21):
I had a really good year.We played well. I'm a good team.
And then I came back here andI'm like, you know what,
I just haven't given this a chance. So I grew up a little bit,
little immature, little immaturity, andthen when I went back, immersed
myself in the culture, immersed myselfin the language, and everything opened up
for me. And after that itwas a great experience. Now you didn't
make a ton of money, butyou get to play basketball. You get
(20:41):
to see the world and experience adifferent culture, and they pay you to
do it. That's amazing. Soit was really great every place. You
know, everyone says what was yourfavorite place? And I'm like, I
don't know if I have a favoriteplace because there were so many great places.
You know, I got to livein Paris, I've lived in Melbourne,
I've lived in Madrid. You know, I've lived not too far from
Stockholm, Sweden. So I'm paidto do that. Yeah, and you
(21:04):
played basketball. You know. Oneof my former colleagues he said that,
you know, it's a fourteen yearof paid vacation. It was paid vacation.
I'm like, kind of yah,that's a great way to look at
it. Yeah, it was great. I got to come home in the
summer. So that's really cool.So the WNBA starts in nineteen ninety seven,
just as you're kind of finishing upyour your pro career. We were
(21:26):
chatting before this, and you hada tryout with one of the very first
teams in that very first year,I did with the Washington Mystics. Nancy
darsh was the coach of the teamat the time, and she was my
assistant at Tennessee when I was there. So I called her up and I
said, well, let's give ita try and see what it. What
I had is experience, Yeah,you can come out and try out.
And then we went through the tryoutsand it was it's pretty clear that you
(21:48):
know, these were twenty three twentyfive year olds that were hungry, and
I kind of saw my old selfand them, and I'm like, I
just I'm glad I tried. AndNancy was very gracious and letting me try
out. So that was kind ofthe end of it, and just kind
of My brother lives in DC,so I've staying with him and from the
gym and I just walked home andI'm like, yeah, I think this
is it riding the subway and thatwas that was the retirement of me playing
(22:11):
basketball. So it was very Yeah, it was very very subtle, I
guess you could say, but I'mlike I just realized. I'm like,
yeah, it's time to it's timefor the next chapter. And I always
knew I wanted to coach, soso how soon do you go into coaching?
Well, I had talked to LindaRonig, who was the head coach
at Regis at the time, theyear before my last year, and hey,
(22:32):
I really want to coach because Ione thing I'd noticed living overseas is
you spend a lot of time inanother country, you kind of get immersed
in that culture. I would comehome after about seventy eight years and be
feel like a stranger in my owncountry. So I did a lot of
reading research on crossing cultures, likewhat's happening here? It was a really
(22:52):
strange feeling. It's a strange feelingto feel like a stranger in your own
country when you're quote home, andit was a really normal feeling. One
of the recommendations was when you comeback, when you know you're coming back
for good. Now, that wouldn'tlast long. It's six weeks or seven
weeks, but so I would reacclimate, but just in time for me to
go over to her again. Absolutely, So you're getting bounced around and as
(23:15):
you When you're young, it's great, but when you get older, like
in my mid thirties, it washarder. I didn't not have my group
of friends. It was always Iwas just kind of a nomad and that's
fun for a while, but it'syeah, if you can't come home and
catch up, yeah, that wouldbe a weird, weird place to be.
Yeah, And it was I knewat the end, I'm like,
okay. So one of the suggestionswas when you do go home, go
(23:37):
to a home or a place thatyou're really comfortable at. So that was
Denver so Regis University. She thoughtshe was going to have an opening that
next year or so. I didinterview and it was fortunate enough to get
that job. So that was myfirst coaching job at Regis University just right
away, and it was awesome,and Linda was a great mentor, a
great first head coach, very outstandingcoach to work for. And then two
(24:02):
years later Seal has an opening andI kept in touch with Seal. Actually
i'd known Seal for the first mether in eighty six, worked camps and
you know, i'd just gotten backfor my first time in overseas in this
wrote her and said, hey,I'm from Colorado. I would love to
maybe think about getting into coaching.So I knew then I kind of wanted
(24:23):
to coach. And so she callsme and I get out and work camp.
And so we'd kept in touch.And then I don't know if you
remember Isabelle Fiedelkowski from France. Idon't. So she's the one that was
on that Elite eight team that almostwent to the Final four. Okay,
she had her for a year six' four, really good player. Well,
she was in France and we playedagainst her and she goes, hey,
I want to go to the States. Can help me. I said,
(24:45):
yeah, So I call Pat andshe goes, I've I already have
six posts. I'm like, whosays that she says, I have enough
post. This was a national teamplayer exactly. Oh my god, I
said. So. My next callwas to Seal. I said, Seel,
let me come out and see thiskid. And she sent her assistant
and they loved her. And sheended up and she only had one year
of eligibility, which is a shamebecause she was very good. So through
all that I kept in touch withSeal all through the years, and she
(25:08):
knew that I eventually wanted to coach. So in two thousand and one she
had an opening and interviewed and Iwas able to get the job and was
with her for four years from oneto five until she retired. If she's
coaching today, I'm still probably acall run. Do you think so?
Oh? I think so? Oh? Wow? Was that great? Yes?
Didn't remind you of Pat A lotof ways? Yeah, A lot
(25:30):
of ways that she reminded me alot of things that she did. She
was very much like I can seethat lot, very much like that.
Yeah, And she gave me suchgreat experience and every facet of a program
I was in charge of at somepoint during my four years there. You
know, I started off the lowman on the totem pole, I was
doing sleeping in the dorm for campand running camp and doing all that.
(25:52):
Then recruiting coordinator, so I gotto see every part of a which is
so important. Yes, really whenyou run the program, Yes, because
it is very different doing just onejob as opposed to being the CEO and
overseeing everything. Yes, Yes,which you found out, You do find
out, you do find out.I mean, I think she kind of
(26:14):
left a little before her time,but she still had an amazing career.
Absolutely, just an amazing, amazingcoach. Yeah, And what she told
me is that she just she realizedthat I'm not finding as much joy in
it, which is what If youget to that point, then it is
time to do something different. Andshe was kind of ready to do some
other things. And she's done amazingwork in the athletic department, yes,
in general and helping even more athletes, which is great. Absolutely, She's
(26:37):
certainly a pioneer, championing, championeechampioning. Right. Yeah, there we
go. So's that Tennessee education kickingin there. Communication, communication, especially
communications at Tennessee. All right,so Seal retires, You go to DU
for a year as an assistant workfor Pam Tanner was great. I didn't
(26:57):
know that I wanted to be ahead coach at some point and the job
at San Francisco came open. Ihad done so much recruiting in the years
I was at CU in California,and I always fly to San Francisco and
be like, this reminds me alot of Europe. So still had a
little bit of the European synecees.Reminds me a lot of Europe. If
(27:18):
this job ever came open, thiswould be a great place to be so
interviewed. And I did get thejob, and I think Seal was a
big help in that. But gotthat job unfortunately did not work out.
I just feel like I didn't geta handle on who to recruit to San
Francisco in time and ended up losingthe job after four years. Our years.
(27:40):
Yeah, what did you learn asa head coach from that first position?
It's trial by error trying to figureout how do you control the whole
thing and look over everything when you'vebeen an assistant for so long. And
we see it happened so often wherecoordinators in the NFL go to the head
coach and it's a disaster because theyjust don't know how to do the whole
thing, yes, and I thinkthat was part of it. I think
(28:03):
the biggest thing for me was therecruiting, not knowing who to recruit.
But I think I made some mistakeswith staff, and as I would talk
to other head coaches, a lotof the mistakes are very common. Or
you don't know what you don't know. And I think about what I know
today versus what I was doing backthen, I'm like, sure, of
(28:23):
course, no one thought I knewwhat the hell I was doing, because
I didn't when it was a blindleading the blind. Or you just don't
know what you don't know. Soof course I would do a lot of
different things. But if there's onething that I blame it on and it's
all comes back to me, wouldbe recruiting. We just didn't recruit good
enough players. I mean, anyof it. I'll tell you that you
(28:44):
don't have to have the players.You can be a great coach. If
you do not have players, it'snot going to you don't have those six
posts just sitting there, the sixthposts, four of them sitting on your
bench, then you have no problemsexactly, just fine. Or you recruit
Candas Parker or you know Shamikh,the Holts or things like that. Absolutely,
So when you do get let gofrom there, how does it happen?
(29:04):
And are you crushed and feeling likeyou can't go on? Or do
you do the whole don't feel sorryfor yourself, moving on getting something else.
I felt sorry for myself for abouta week, and then I heard
Pat's voice and I actually talked withher, talk with Seal. The original
thought was the conventional wisdom was Okay, go back and be an assistant at
(29:25):
Division one. And I didn't knowif I wanted to do that. I
wasn't sure what I wanted to do. You know, I could have taken
a year off, go around,watch people practice. You know, the
basketball piece for me has never beenthe problem. I mean, it may
sound arrogant, but I can coach. The coaching piece is not that difficult
really, right, It's I don'tfeel basketball. It's basketball. It's managing
players, managing your staff, recruitingthe players, things like that. Culture,
(29:48):
it's all the other stuff that doesn'thappen during the game. Correct.
And so it was interesting about aweek, maybe two weeks after I had
been let go, Joan McDermott,who was the ad at Metro State at
the time, calls me up andsays, I'm going to be in San
Francisco and she's originally from San Francisco. So I met her. That was
(30:10):
when Linda Lappie was going to getthe job at CEU. Oh yeah,
at the time, So that wasthe timing there. So we met and
I talked with her about, youknow, what I thought had gone wrong,
and I think she wanted to know. And later on she had told
me that you know the fact thatyou took so much accountability and it is
there's no question about it that youknow. But I was devastated, no
(30:32):
question. What I will say afterthat happened is it was a great testament
to the coaching profession. I hadso many coaches in the WCC where I
was competing. I had lunch withone of them and he said, Tanya,
we're all one year away from whereyou are, so we all understand
that. And that support that Igot from other coaches was really touching to
(30:55):
me. Wow, And that said, okay, then I definitely want to
go on. But anyway, wetalked with Joan. The process takes long
enough. Her process to hire acoach took long enough because I wasn't really
sure at the time what I wantedto do. So it happened in March.
She had me come out in Mayand I still wasn't completely sure.
But you know, and I didn'tknow anything about division two. The committee,
(31:17):
it is like, what do youknow about division two? And now
knowing here what we're looking for it, I'm thinking I completely bombed this with
the committee, right with the committee, like do you know what life and
the balances? Or no? No, no, but here's my handbook or
what I really it was. Youdidn't pass. I can't. I didn't
pass with them. Here's where Idid pass is I met with two players
(31:44):
after that, and one of themhappened to be the All American point guard,
and they had all kinds of questionsfor me, and I said,
I know I can get you toa championship. I said that to him,
and I passed with them. Ipassed with Joan because Joan wanted to
hire me, but I knew Ihadn't done it with the committee. So
I go back home and I'm like, I don't even know what I'm going
(32:05):
to do. I don't even knowif I'm gonna get this job. So
another week passes and I'm actually drivingdown to play in a golf tournament at
Stanford. And I know Tara.I'm good friends with Tara. So I
called Tara up and I said,hey, have a few minutes advice.
She met with me, another greatmentor of me. Now I'm glad that
she is the one who passed Pat'swins record, which is awesome. And
(32:29):
she's just like, you know,you can go back and be a head
coach. You can get some moreexperience. You know, That's what she
should do. And so I goand play the golf tournament. And then
I'm driving back up to San Franciscofrom Stanford and I called Joan and I
go to Joan. I said,Joan, do you really want to hire
me? She hadn't offered me.She's so the thing she'd offered me the
job, and I'm like, Idon't want to pity or anything of that.
(32:51):
And I know Joan wouldn't do that. If you don't know Joan McDermott,
she's not making a pity higher yeah, And so she goes, I
want you, and if you turnthe job down, I am going to
reopen the job and go back inthe pool. If you don't take the
job, I said, I'll callyou in the morning. And then I
thought about it, and I said, look, I get the chance to
(33:12):
go home. You know, it'sbeen great as my parents have gotten older.
I get to go home. Noteverybody gets to choose where they get
to coach. I get to bea head coach and learn from the mistakes.
Really had turned it into a growthopportunity to say, Okay, I
know where I made my mistakes,so I can fix those mistakes. And
I'm getting an opportunity to do that. So I called her the next morning
(33:32):
and I took the job. Itwas a great decision. I mean because
you might think, okay, divisionone, division two, but head coaching
is head coaching. You maybe haveto manage a few more people at division
one, but you're still in chargeof it. It was a great decision,
and that first year we were armacchamps. We went thirty and three,
We won the region, blown everythingout of the water. Thank you
(33:54):
to Linda. Lappie left me somereally good kids. But the kid that
really got us the top was CassandraBratton, who came out of retirement and
played, and she was the mostvaluable player in the region. We should
have been in the final four thatyear at the lead eight, but that
was where lightning just struck that year, and the kids had bought into everything.
(34:14):
They were so gritty team, theydidn't care about there was no drama
and we just kept winning. Wewould win games, maybe forty six to
forty five, but we would win, and everybody, well, you're not
that good. Well we must bepretty good because we still win. We're
still winning. And it was justjust a team that I think the stars
aligned and it was amazing. Andwe had three or four amazing years after
(34:35):
that, and he just built on, built on, built on, Yes,
you know, and that when wehad to start over with some younger
kids in there. But then forthe most part, I've had some pretty
good sustains success fourteen years and counting, Yes, which is crazy. Yes,
it's been a really great place.I got to say this about Division
you know, first few years itwas like, oh, I want to
get back to Division one, wantto get back to Division one. But
(34:55):
the longer that I was here waslike saw Division two that it's really remarkably
for those that don't know high levelof play. And really the biggest difference
is that kids are a little bitbigger, maybe a little more athletic,
but there's a lot of skill inDivision two, remarkably high. And then
the other piece was MSU Denver orMetro State, what their values of that
(35:17):
university were, and who were educatingin the athletic department and overall there's some
great stories of rebirth, yes andthings like that, and just to see
that and maybe some people that wouldn'tget educated otherwise, that's just going to
help all of us. So howmuch I really appreciate that kind of that
(35:38):
blue collar, grinded out place thatMetro is. So I've really come to
appreciate that, and that's why I'mstill there absolutely well. And I think
there's a lot to be said aboutDivision two, whether it be Metro State
or any Division two program. Thoseare the kids that come in with chips
on their shoulder a lot of timesbecause they didn't find something at Division one,
they were denied or whatever, andso they're like, all right,
(36:00):
I'm going to go prove myself here. So you get that blue collar,
that gritty athlete that then is probablythere for an education as well. Because
they're not going to go on andplay professionally most often, and so they're
also getting their education, and youjust you find a different type of person
and then if you can create thatgreat culture with them, sky's the limit.
(36:20):
Yes, now it is. It'sgreat. You know, all our
programs are doing so well at Metro. I mean we had a down year,
but I expect us to be backnext year. But it is you
get a kid that's different. Theireducation is important, you know, and
other things. And for me,who was so single minded in school,
and to see other parts of thesekids and really enjoy, really appreciate other
(36:40):
parts of kids, it's been funfor me. I bet it. It's
been eye opening because again it waspretty single minded about okay, the highest
level and blah blahlah. But yousee this and you can still do it
at a high level and really appreciatesome of these some of the players that
we've recruited and they've gone on,the kids that we've had have gone on
in really great things. I loveit all. Right, Well, you
are in during your time while you'vebeen coaching, you go into the Colorido
(37:04):
Sports Hall of Fame. You gointo the Tennessee Lady Balls Hall of Fame.
You're in multiple halls of fame,your high school hall of fame?
What's been one of the cooler momentsfor you? Now? As you look
back, and like we said atthe very beginning, you were surprised at
a couple of the ones that youdon't really think about when you're in high
school. But as you look back, are there ones that stand out more
than others? Of like that wasI never thought i'd be there. Probably
(37:24):
the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.Yeah, just because of who's in that.
I mean, just look at thiscrazy you know, Mike, what
am I doing here? I wasactually coaching at CU when they gave me
the letter. I was in thefilm room, still gave me the letter.
It was awesome, And Joni Brooklynis the one who nominated I don't
(37:45):
know Jony Brooklyn. And then theygave me a letter that Pat had written
for that Oh she wrote a yeah, she wrote a letter recommendation. So
to see all that was special.Just again that who's in that Hall of
fame? Like keep going, Ikeep pinching myself what am I doing there?
So that was really a special night. I bet. Yeah, it's
(38:06):
cool and I'm so honored. Iget to MC that event with Dave Logan
every year and then when we haveeverybody up on the dais and I just
look around, I'm like, mygod, it's it's amazing the people that
are in that and you belong inthat, Tanya, definitely thank you.
Well, it's a great honor.And you know the High School Hall of
Fame, it was in National HighSchool Hall of Fame was in Maui.
(38:27):
I had a great time there.Yeah, someone had to do it,
so it happened to be the yearwhere it was in Maui. But I
still would go back to the ColoradoSports Hall of Fame just because as a
native and what that means. Anddo find out that the majority of my
time, even though I went overseasand played at Tennessee and every it is
about Colorado and Colorado is definitely myhome. All Right, last question for
(38:49):
you, Tanya, that I askall of my guests. Everybody goes through
ups and downs and there's a firingor there's just you know, down years.
What do you tell people? Whatdo you tell your student athletes?
And there are those down times?And I know you refer back to Pat
don't feel sorry for yourself, Buthow do you kind of counsel people?
I think another one of my hatsas a coach is I probably have a
PhD in counseling. With some ofthe things that players go through today,
(39:14):
especially the last few years coming outof COVID and everything else in the world
just becoming a little more complex,is a lot of them. I said,
you're not alone, because a lotof people think that, oh,
this is only happening to me.I've been guilty of it, and I'm
like, oh, that's right,I'm not alone. We're all in this
together. We're all human, weall have the same emotions, the same
(39:35):
fears. That's the biggest thing isthat you're not alone and you're going to
get through this. A PhD incounseling probably not that smart, but well,
just from the experiences. And thenwhen you deal with women, and
sometimes we tend to get emotional,and we have all kinds of things that
are going on, and we alltry and take on way too much,
whether it be we have so manyroles that we have to take on,
and so you do probably end upcounseling a lot. I do, And
(40:00):
sometimes I know when I'm in overmy head. It's like, so fortunately
we have a great counseling center.But for people that that players, hey,
you're not alone, You're this isreally typical. The biggest thing is
when freshmen come in is that they'reso overwhelmed with the intensity of the workouts,
the intensity of school, that beingaway from home and everything in the
world's been blown up. And yeah, I'm like, this is really typical
(40:20):
because they think that this is sooverwhelming, like what you're going through is
really normal, and you're gonna befine. It's gonna be okay, it's
gonna be okay, Okay, itis good. All right, Tanya,
thank you so much for the time. Thank you. This has really been
an honor and I really appreciate this. It's great and a great way.
I mean, you're just one ofthose one of those women. You do
belong in every single thing that you'vebeen nominated to and that you've been inducted
(40:42):
to, and it's just fun tohave you in for this. Well,
thank you so much. Well you'reon the Hall of Fame for me to
the podcast Hall of Fame podcast Hallof Fame someday. Right, all right,
thanks Tanya. Thanks so much,Tanya. New episodes of Cut,
Traded, Fired, Retired come outevery Tuesday on nearly every podcast platform.
Get social with the podcast on Twitterand Instagram at ctfur podcast, and check
(41:06):
out the website ctfurpodcast dot com.I'm your host, Susie Wargen. To
learn more about me, visit Susiewargendot com. Thanks so much for listening,
and until next time, please becareful, be safe, and be
kind. Take care
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Cold Case Files: Miami
Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides. Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.