WEATHERFORD - Southwestern Oklahoma State University has a new leader for the women's basketball program selecting Fresno State assistant Kelsi Bond as the school's new head coach. The 29-year old Bond takes over for Shelly Pond who resigned earlier this year after 10 seasons at the Weatherford school.
An Oklahoma native, Bond is returning to her home state where she played and starred at Canton High School and later at Cameron University.
SWOSU Athletics Director Todd Thurman said he and members of the selection committee were looking for a young and energetic coach with a strong background in the state to take over the women's program. SWOSU has won five NAIA National Championships in the 1980's and most recently were Lone Star Conference North Division Champions in 2005-06."We are extremely pleased that Kelsi Bond has joined our University as head women's basketball coach," Thurman said. "We considered a number of excellent candidates for the position, but Kelsi rose to the top in all categories, from background to references. We couldn't be happier."
"I am excited and thrilled to be joining such a great University and working with the faculty, staff and students," Bond said. "The women's basketball program at Southwestern has such a rich tradition. It has always enjoyed a long history of support in the community and from the administration. All the necessary tools are here for us to be successful, and I fully expect us to be."
Bond said she plans to meet with her team on Tuesday and indicated that she knows little about the returning personnel but emphasized that many of the facets that worked for her in the past would be brought to SWOSU.
"I am anxious to get to know and start working with our players right away. We want to play hard every minute of every game and use tough aggressive defense and still crash the boards." Bond said. "We plan on using a fast-paced offense where we like to shoot three pointers, but love layups even more."
ADA — When Ron Prince was named head football coach at Kansas State in December of 2005, one of the first things he did was to call his old friend, East Central University head coach Tim McCarty, and ask him to join his staff as assistant head coach.
When McCarty was re-hired as ECU’s head man last December, one of the first things he did was to promote his old friend, Todd Fugett, to defensive coordinator. And Fugett — who held the job for 12 straight years before being demoted to linebackers coach by former head coach Kurt Nichols last fall — couldn’t be happier.
“It’s given me a spark of life again,” Fugett said last week. “I’m back to doing all the game-planning, and just working with the young men is a big thing. I’m a teacher, I’m a coach, and that’s what we do. As a coordinator, you’re kind of constructing the whole thing, so that’s been real fulfilling.”
“You just have to understand that in our profession things like that happen,” Fugett said of last year’s demotion by Nichols. “At least I still had a job. I could have been fired and told to hit the road.
“In some ways, it was a nice change for me, because I got to just focus on the linebackers,” he added. “If you’re a professional, you don’t whine and moan about a so-called demotion ... you realize you just have to do the best job for whoever is the coordinator. That’s what I tried to focus on doing.”
Of note: The Rambelles play their final nonconference games of the season today in Austin against their regional rivals from St. Edward's. ... ASU is coming off a 3-1 series victory against Abilene Christian. The Rambelles lost the first game of the series 7-3 before rebounding to win the final two 11-5 and 7-6. With the wins, the Rambelles moved into a tie with ACU for first place in the Lone Star Conference South Division standings. ... St. Edward's is coming off a four-game sweep of Incarnate Word over the weekend. ... ASU is 20-7 all-time against St. Edward's. The Rambelles have won two of the three meetings between the teams this season. ... ASU will return to LSC play on Friday when it begins a three-game series at Texas Woman's.
The annual Angelo State David Noble Relays begin today with the first day of the heptathlon and decathlon. The multi-events will run today and Wednesday before the full meet begins on Thursday. All the competition will take place at the LeGrand Sports Complex.
2 comments:
That Coach Bond is one hot number. Think I shall move to Weatherford and join the Bulldog club - or whatever they call it.
I am a Bulldog fan now. I am in love
BP
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