Tara's coaching tree

The topic of yesterday's Forum on KQED was "Challenges Persist for Women in Coaching" (Click here for the podcast).

The percentage of women coaching women's collegiate teams is at an all time low, down from more than 90% in the early 1970s to about 40%; the number of women assistant coaches is now less than 50%.

The panel explored the reasons women are leaving the coaching profession and what can be done to keep them in the game.

Tara was one of the guests on the panel. She thinks that a lot of women believe they need men on their staff. She’s not one of them. In her 31 years of coaching at Stanford, all of her assistant coaches have been women. She said, “I’ve hired women to mentor them and a lot of them have gone on [in the profession].”

Tara’s coaching tree is flourishing. These are her former assistant coaches and students who are currently women's/girls' basketball coaches or professional basketball executives.

	Charli Turner Thorne (1984-88), head coach at Arizona State, 19th season.
	June Daugherty (asst coach 1985-89), head coach at Washington State, ninth season.
	Jennifer Azzi (1986-90), head coach at the University of San Francisco, sixth season.
	Katy Steding (1986-90), head coach at Boston University, second season.
	Angela Taylor (1989-93, asst coach 1995-97), President and General Manager of the WNBA Atlantic Dream, tenth year with WNBA
	Renee Brown (asst coach 1989-90), WNBA Chief of Basketball Operations and Player Relations, 20th year with WNBA
	Molly Goodenbour (1989-93), head coach at Cal State Dominguez Hills, third season.
	Kate Paye (1991-95), assistant coach at Stanford, ninth season.
	Bobbie Kelsey (1991-96, asst coach 2007-11), head coach at the University of Wisconsin, fourth season.
	Amy Wustefeld Brooks (1992-96), WNBA Executive Vice President, Team Marketing & Business Operations, 11th year with WNBA
	Charmin Smith (1993-97, asst coach 2004-07), associate head coach at Cal, seventh season at Cal.
	Vanessa Nygaard (1993-98), Senior Associate Athletic Director and Girls' Basketball Program Lead at Windward School in Los Angeles, seventh season at Windward.
	Milena Flores (1996-2000), assistant coach at Princeton, ninth season.
	Karen Middleton (asst coach 1997-2007), associate head coach at Cal State Fullerton, first season
	Tia Jackson (asst coach 1999-2000), assistant coach at University of Miami, first season
	Jamie Carey (1999-2002), assistant coach at the University of Colorado, second season.
	Nicole Powell (2000-04), assistant coach at the University of Oregon, second season.
	Markisha Coleman (2003-07), head coach at Menlo-Atherton High School, second season.
	Melanie Murphy (2006-11), head coach at Sacred Heart Prep in Atherton, second season.
	Lindy La Rocque (2008-12), assistant coach at Belmont University in Nashville,TN, first season.
	Trina Patterson (asst coach 2011-13), assistant coach at Old Dominion, third season.

Alanna is standout Aussie freshman in U.S.

The Pick and Roll is a website about Aussies playing hoops the world over. Damian Arsensis, who writes about Aussies in U.S. college, has picked his top five NCAA freshmen women. His #1 pick is our own Alanna Smith:

Such is the talent of Alanna Smith, she arrives in Stanford as their first ever women’s international recruit, and she is unlikely to disappoint.

Smith boasts an impeccable pedigree with a father who played professionally in the Australian NBL and SEABL for well over a decade and an uncle who captained the senior national team. However Smith has been making a name for herself.

The dynamic forward excelled at the 2015 FIBA U19 World Championships where she earned selection to the All-Star 5 after leading her country to a bronze medal. Her performances on the world stage in 2015 followed an outstanding 2014 FIBA Oceania U18 Championships where she was also the tournament standout.

Quite simply, Smith is the complete package. She can rebound, defend, block shots, run the floor and score efficiently; a future Australian Opal in the making.

Expect Smith be the standout Aussie freshman in NCAA Division I hoops this season.

Here is the whole article: NCAA Women: The top 5 freshmen Aussies

Football fun and first practice

Thanks to Stanford Women's Basketball Facebook for reporting these events:

Tara served as the honorary captain Saturday night as Stanford Football defeated Arizona 55-17. It did not count as her 954th career win.

Following the first quarter, the women's athletic program was honored for winning the 2014 Capital One Cup as the best in the country. Student-athletes from many sports gathered on the field to accept the award.

Capital One Cup

Tara wasn't the only one with a field pass tonight »

Posted by Stanford Women's Basketball on Saturday, October 3, 2015

Work began today with the first practice. Warriors warmed up the court for the Cardinal.

Then the Cardinal got down to business with a solid three hours of practice, as reported by Stanford Athletics: IT BEGINS Cardinal starts 2015-16 campaign with first official practice

Becoming the Stanford Tree

Sarah Young, this year's Tree, has created a weeping willow design for her mascot costume. Like Trees before her, she made the costume herself. Videographer Kurt Hickman chronicles the process of becoming the Tree: Stanford Band debuts new weeping willow Tree design

Cardinal has a new intern

Mary Merg has joined the Cardinal staff as an intern for the 2015-16 season.

Mary was a standout guard for the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Warhawks from 2010-14.

She stepped onto the coaching ladder as an assistant coach at the Division III St. Mary's University in Minnesota. In April, she attended the 2015 Women's Basketball Coaches Association "So You Want To Be A Coach" workshop.

As an intern at Stanford, Mary expects to handle a lot of the "behind the scenes" work, including recruiting, video and other day-to-day operations.

For more information about Mary, see: Women’s Basketball Alums Continue Climb Up Coaching Ladder

Complete 2015-16 schedule announced

Stanford Women's Basketball announced its complete 2015-16 schedule today.

The Cardinal is scheduled for 30 regular-season games. 19 of them will be televised — 17 on the Pac-12 Networks, one on ESPN and one on ESPNU.

Game dates and times are a bit more consistent than last season. 25 of the Cardinal's 30 regular season games are on Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

In conference play, Stanford plays Washington and Washington State only at home and USC and UCLA only away. It plays the other seven Pac-12 teams both at home and away. As was the case last season, Stanford and Cal play both of their games in the same week about midway through the season.

This is the schedule from the FBC. Game information includes links to each opponent's women's basketball website and maps of the venues. Links to other media coverage (live streams, radio, live stats) and FBC pre-game and post-game events will be added as soon as the information is available.

This is the announcement and the schedule from Stanford Athletics.

Cardinal has a new athletic trainer

After 13 years as Stanford Women's Basketball athletic trainer, Marcella Shorty has transferred to Dawn Staley's staff at the University of South Carolina.

Katelin Knox will take her place on the Cardinal bench. Here is Katelin's bio from the Stanford Sports Medicine Program.

The 2015-16 non-conference schedule

The 2015-16 non-conference schedule has been announced. It features Thanksgiving in Florida, at least five games against NCAA Tournament opponents from last season and a visit from the Lady Vols in December.

This is the announcement from Stanford Athletics. Tip times and broadcast information along with Stanford’s Pac-12 schedule will be announced in September once television arrangements have been finalized. In this year’s rotation, UCLA and USC do not visit Maples Pavilion while Stanford misses its regular-season trip to Washington and Washington State.

This is the schedule from the FBC. Game information includes links to each opponent's women's basketball website and maps of the venues.

Pac-12 games, links to media coverage (TV, live streams, radio, live stats) and FBC pre-game and post-game events will be added as soon as the information is available.

Thanksgiving in Florida update

As I reported about three months ago, the Cardinal will spend the weekend after Thanksgiving in Southwest Florida as part of the third annual Gulf Coast Showcase. More information is available now.

The women's tournament will be held from Nov. 27-29 at Germain Arena in Estero, Florida. The Cardinal will be joined at the event by:

The Dayton Flyers
The Louisville Cardinals
The LSU Tigers
The Maine Black Bears
The Marist Red Foxes
The Missouri State Lady Bears
The Purdue Boilermakers

The tournament format is an eight-team playoff, with winners playing winners and losers playing losers in the second and third rounds, to determine places one through eight.

Stanford will begin the tournament with a game against Missouri State at 11:30 am Pacific Time. Click here for the bracket, which shows first round pairings and all game times.

You can now buy tickets or buy a travel package. The travel package provides these options: three or four nights at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort & Spa (the official host resort for each of the participating teams), game tickets, transfers between the hotel and games, a Thanksgiving buffet dinner that includes a Q&A with the head coaches of the tournament.

How do you get there? Estero is a suburb of Fort Myers, about 10 miles south of the nearest major airport – Southwest Florida International Airport. Here is a map that shows the airport, the arena, and the team hotel.

If you prefer to make your own travel arrangements, here is a map that shows the hotels near Germain Arena.

Pro-Am season ends on a losing note for Cardinal players

The San Francisco Pro-Am ended in disappointment for two Stanford women’s basketball players and an alum as their team, Bay City, lost 79-66 to Mission Recreation Center on Aug. 1 at Kezar Pavilion.

Bay City, which includes freshman forward Shannon Coffee, freshman guard Marta Sniezek and guard Markisha Coleman, ’07, never led but did stay within striking distance, narrowing the gap to 5 points early in the third quarter.

Even though Bay City had 10 players and Mission Rec had eight, Mission Rec won the game by capitalizing on Bay City turnovers, outrebounding the opponent and pouring in 3-pointers.

The winning team also outmuscled Bay City in the paint. Thus the previously high-scoring Shannon was held to 5 points, five rebounds and a block. Because she was guarded so closely and so physically, her teammates had a hard time getting the ball to her.

In addition, Shannon’s time was limited after she picked up her third foul in the second quarter and went to the bench. She was in and out during the second half but had only one more foul.

Marta had 2 points, three rebounds, three steals and an assist. Markisha added 1 point, two rebounds and one steal. Like Shannon, both were in and out of the game.

Coming into the game, Bay City had a 4-1 record. Its only loss was at the hands of Mission Rec in the first game, which Shannon and Marta missed because they were just getting settled on campus.

Mission Rec was undefeated. After the game, when trophies were presented to the coaches of both teams, it was announced that this was Mission Rec’s sixth championship in seven years.

About a dozen Stanford fans were among the estimated 125 people at the game.

As they have done in previous games, Shannon and Marta crossed the court after the game to thank their fans for coming.

They said they were glad to have spent some time with junior forward Erica “Bird” McCall. Bird was on campus for a few days to help with a hoops camp after earning a gold medal with the undefeated USA team in the World University Games in South Korea.

The freshmen said they have two more weeks of school before heading home for a month. They’ll return to campus Sept. 15. Classes start Sept. 21.