Former Virginia Tech women's basketball head coach Bonnie Henrickson fired at University of Kansas after 11 seasons, per Jay Mohr Sports.
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Former Virginia Tech women's basketball head coach Bonnie Henrickson fired at University of Kansas after 11 seasons, per Jay Mohr Sports.
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Back in the days that Tech women usually were better than Tech men, Bonnie at the helm. She never did find that magic at Kansas though, making two Sweet 16s but those were their only NCAA appearances in 11 years.
Wonder if Whit would consider bringing her back? Doesn't seem like Dennis Wolff will be here for much longer.
Bonnie was at her best level when at VT. She took the money at Kansas because of Jim Weaver's arrogance and refusal to adequately fund any program other than football. Just another example of how horribly he mismanaged Hokie athletics during his entire career. Lots like to pretend he was good, maybe out of sympathy for his illness, or maybe just out of their own willfull ignorance mirroring his willfull dismissal of every sport except football at Virginia Tech. Regardless, just another reminder of how Jim Weaver crippled Hokie athletics for years & years in a row.
Well, Tom Brands and Kevin Dresser (Wrestling), Dave Cienelli (Track) and Pete Hughes did well. The rest- a train wreck. and a reminder- he very nearly ran Beamer off for Gary Darnell. Talk about a program crippling mistake.
yes, and what do you think the odds would be of our getting into the ACC if that had happened?
Have to take major exception with Tom Brands. Tom Brands did nothing well for Virginia Tech. Tom Brands recruited well, redshirted the recruits, and then left for Iowa attempting to bring said recruits with him having never wrestled for Virginia Tech. The entire wrestling program was very, very nearly shut down because of Tom Brands.
Not that I'm blaming Jim Weaver for that situation but it was extremely ugly. In fact now that I think about it, I wonder if that whole debacle didn't contribute to Weaver becoming even more cautious about hiring qualified outsiders, who would be more of a risk to leave and create a similar situation, rather than promoting from within.
Pretending that Weaver did nothing but run the athletic department into the ground is just ignorant. He was a big part of getting us into the ACC, and we saw major improvements from the non-revenue sports from the mid-90s to the 2000s. On top of that, he got the ball rolling on the excellent facilities we have now and ran the program in the black for years. Did he overstay his welcome? Yep. Was he far too complacent in hiring assistants to actually do a legit coaching search? You bet. However, he was the perfect man for the job from his hiring until the mid-2000s. Without him, the department wouldn't have been nearly as strong, nor the AD job nearly as good, as it was in 2014. He left an excellent foundation for a guy like Whit to come in and do something special.
What a coincidence. I admit to having no prior knowledge about the VT Women's basketball program but I was researching Dennis Wolff and came across Beth Dunkenberger's name, which led me to Bonnie Hendrickson.
She really did a lot with the program, I never knew that the women's team was THAT good. Its not too surprising that KU let her go, given that she has been on the hot seat there before.
But for those in the know, is Mr. Babcock really looking into letting Wolff go? I read somewhere that he is well liked and has been bringing in good recruits. The ESPNw basketball recruiting page shows that VT has 2 of the top recruits.
I think that it is 50/50 as to whether Wolff stays or goes. I know he helped himself tremendously with the 2 ACC wins. It might not make sense to some, but I expect Whit doesn't want to start his second year as AD by firing another basketball coach. I think Wolff stays for one more year, and will be absolutely gone unless he bring in a top half ACC finish next year.
Yeah, I doubt Whit wants to have 5 basketball coaches AND the retired AD on the payroll at the same time.
Dude, Bonnie's term at VT was the BEST for being in the HT pep band. When she left, we hardly ever got to chant "Double Your Sco-ore!", etc at the other team.
Plus her leading our serenade of "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" before her post-game interviews was great.
there is no "D"...it is Henrickson
Maybe that's why she was canned. You can't win on offense alone
you're welcome : )
That was a damn fine set-up.
Sorry, autocorrect
I would love to get Bonnie back at VT to help get our VT women's team relevant again.
The problem is that her brand of basketball was as boring to watch as UVa, but not as successful.
Boring for basketball standards or Women's basketball standards?
Both. If you weren't around at the time, you might not understand (don't know your history), but it was really REALLY boring basketball. Bonnie won, and was a charming representative of women's hoops for Tech. But her basketball was just boring. She did seemingly everything right outside of the oncourt stuff, and folks really liked her a lot. But the actual games were just torture.
I wasn't a student during her time but knew of her well, was just taking a jab at the fact that I've never seen a women's game I would describe as exciting.
LOL, well, there is that. Unless you buy into the 'Hoosiers' movie concept, women's hoops can be a little... uhh... like NASCAR.
Dangerous and exciting?
aaaand leg.
Back in high school soccer we used to say that the women's team was like watching the men's team underwater.
So what I think your saying is, the girls should play basketball under water. I'd watch bikini-water-ball! When is that on?
To be fair to a friend who didn't like her that much but can't say so, she wasn't always so nice to some of the "little people" who made her life easier.
That said, I liked the results of her style of coaching. Boring or not, she won basketball games and generated excitement about women's hoops. She absolutely brought more upscale attention to the VT women's program, the community bought in, brought their kids, it was really good times. Good coach, I'd love to have her back. Don't know why the program went so flat after she left, maybe JW is to blame, but it seemed to me that she was a difference making coach. While I don't pretend to be a fan of women's hoops in general, if it's the Hokies, I'm a fan.
I enjoyed the Lisa Witherspoon - Amy Wetzel years.
And there was a while there when Tech's two revenue sports were football and WOMEN'S BASKETBALL. Maybe only one Sweet 16 season, but lady's roundball was definitely in the financial black and outdrew the men's team 10:1. Damn you Ricky Stokes.
I always thought winning and going to the Dance was boring /s