Tennessee has a new leader of the Lady Vols basketball program. Athletic Director Danny White announced on Sunday that the Vols have hired Kim Caldwell as the new head coach. She comes from a dominant background in coaching at the Division II level before getting her first D1 opportunity at Marshall University.
Caldwell is the first hire outside the Lady Vols family since Pat Summitt stepped down as the head coach in 2012. She has no ties to Tennessee and began her career at the Division II level in West Virginia. She has seen most of her success at the same school she played at, DII Glenville State.
She also served as an assistant coach for one season at Ohio Valley University in 2011-12 to start her coaching career. She then moved to Glenville State for one season and spent three seasons at Sacramento State before returning to Glenville State for the head coaching job.
Caldwell is a West Virginian at heart, coming from Parkersburg, West Virginia, but decided to leap Tennessee with the Lady Vols coaching opportunity. She brings her fast-paced offense and aggressive press defense to Knoxville after spending seven seasons at Division II Glenville State and one season at Marshall University.
Caldwell put together an impressive 191-24 record at Glenville State as she turned the Pioneers into a DII powerhouse. She capped off her career at Glenville State with a National Championship in 2022. Throughout her young career at Glenville State and Marshall, she has compiled a career record of 217-31 (.875) and a 149-13 (.920) conference record.
She was awarded the Furfari Award in 2022, which is awarded to West Virginia's College Coach of the Year, but her success exceeded state borders. Caldwell was also awarded the Pat Summitt Trophy after being named the Division II National Coach of the Year.
Caldwell immediately brought her success to the Division I level and earned the 2024 Spalding Maggie Dixon NCAA Division I Rookie Coach of the Year Award. She led the Thundering Herd to an impressive 26-7 record, going 17-1 in conference play and winning a Sun Belt Championship in her first year before losing in the first round of the women's NCAA Tournament to Virginia Tech.
Returning to Glenville State, she has also won the regular-season conference title every season. She has been a head coach and has not lost more than four conference games in a season.
Last season, Caldwell led Marshall to the No. 4 scoring offense, No. 3 three-pointers made, No. 2 in forced turnovers, and No. 3 steals per game in the country. Her coaching style leads to fast and fun basketball, which has transitioned immediately on the court everywhere she's been in her young career.
Before joining Marshall, the program scored 100+ points only 15 times in program history. Caldwell helped the Herd do it five times last season alone. Marshall also averaged 24.2 forced turnovers per game and 13.2 steals per game last season. Expect that fast paced offense that shoots a lot of threes and forces turnovers on the other end with her to come to Tennessee.
Caldwell matches what Danny White looks for in any head coaching search: a hard worker on the court and the recruiting trail. She has won everywhere she has been and brings a new brand of basketball to Knoxville as the Vols hire "outside the family" for the first time in the post-Pat Summitt era of Lady Vols basketball.