With Season Opener Saturday, GatorZone Sits Down With Women's Coach Amanda Butler
Friday, November 12, 2010 | Women's Basketball, Scott Carter
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The UF women's basketball team opens the season Saturday afternoon in the first round of the 2010 Preseason WNIT.
The Gators have six new players on the roster, including four true freshmen and a pair of junior-college transfers in guards Lanita Bartley and Deana Allen.
Coming off a 15-17 season, Florida head coach Amanda Butler has a revamped team she hopes will boost the program's stature in the SEC. That quest starts at home against UCF and head coach Joi Williams, a former UF assistant who coached Butler when Butler played for the Gators in the early 1990s.
GatorZone.com sat down with Butler earlier this week to get her thoughts on her team, what she looks for in a recruit, and what's it going to take for another SEC program to reach the elite status of Tennessee's program.
Here is our Q&A with Butler:
Q: As you open your fourth season, what makes this year's team different from your previous three?
A: I think there is just a completely different energy that is surrounding this team and a lot of that is because of the newness. That's not to infer anything negative about the past three teams, but this energy is just really different. A lot of that comes from just the freshness of having so many new people that a lot of people would view as a negative because there is inexperience there, probably a lack of cohesiveness. There is definitely a learning curve there, no doubt about it, but I feel like the positives far outweigh the negatives in that regard. When you measure that feeling – although it's impossible to really measure – you just kind of get that sense of what it feels like to be in practice every day or to interact with this group at dinner. There is just a different something about them. They are all here much more under a uniform idea why they came here. That's part of it. And for the kids who have been here a few years, the expectations have risen, and the idea of how do we get some of these things done that have never happened before. There are some of those things going on, too.
Q: How have you changed as a coach since you took over the program in 2007?
A: Every year has just been so different. That's been dictated by the makeup of the team. There are some things about me that probably have been very consistent and steady and unwavering, and then there are other things that we've had to try and tailor to fit the needs, the strengths and weaknesses of our group of student-athletes. When you take over a team three years ago, it was a team full of kids that none of them I had recruited. That next year, there was a familiarity with me and what I expected, but there was still a little bit of, 'How's this going to work? Is it working?' And then last year, there was much more familiarity, but we didn't have as much success for whatever reason. It's been so different every year. It's really hard to say. You might get a better answer if you ask everybody around here how I've changed. I do think – if this is possible – that my intensity level has gone up every year and I think my expectations have gone up every year also. There are some things we should expect now. There is a certain way of doing things that we should be committed to – after every year, that kind of builds.
Q: What is the most important trait you look for in a player when you are recruiting her?
A: Far and away aggressiveness is to me something that really catches my eye when I'm evaluating a player that I don't know, I don't know anything about her personality. I just am watching a high school ballgame, or a summer ballgames, and I am seeing someone for the first time, there is a certain level of aggressiveness I like to see. And interwoven into that is just a level of toughness and a level of confidence that I like to see. I think all of those things work pretty much hand in hand. You really don't a lot of times see a kid who is really aggressive but isn't tough, or see a tough kid who really, really lacks in confidence. After that first layer of discovery, you have things like, 'Well, how hard will she work? What type of personality does she have? Does she burn to be a champion in the classroom the same way she does on the court?' And at the same time, does she have good balance and enjoy all this in the midst of working hard and busting her tail every day.
Q: Who had the biggest influence on why you are at UF right now as head women's basketball coach?
A: I can get real deep and just go straight to my mom. Some of the very, very first memories I have are of being at basketball games and basketball practices – and my mom never coached at a very high level – but it was part of the beginning of my life. My mom was coaching junior high and JV and was an assistant on certain teams. So coaching and the world of athletics and being a child, the first people I looked up to were these girls who were in eighth grade and seventh grade and then high school who I just thought absolutely hung the moon because I was 4. But I remember those things and they made very big impacts on me. There is a woman I talk about all the time. Her name is Nicole Burgess. Nicole Burgess was my Maya Moore when I was 5 years old. [Burgess played prep basketball near Butler's hometown and later at Lipscomb (Tenn.) University in Nashville]. I didn't realize it until I was in high school and later playing and coaching in college that Nicole Burgess was a lot smaller than me and probably at the end of it all, not as good a basketball player. But when I was a kid, she was tough, she was gritty, she worked hard every day, and those were things that were explained to me to be important. I just thought she was Magic Johnson at that point in my life. I have to point to that. The very first set of stitches I got was at a high school basketball game with my mom while I racing some little boy out in the hall. I won the race. After I beat him, I slid for emphasis – a little over the top – and slid into some chairs. That's where the stitches came from. I was just so fortunate to grow up in a community where girl's basketball was so important. Mount Juliet (Tenn.) High School was before I was there, while I was there, and still is a community that just loves its girl's basketball team. There are state titles, trips to the state tournament and a whole lot of wins that show that. That's how I grew up. And then going from that to being here, and being led by Carol Ross for four years, I have just been so blessed in the way the guidance and the leadership and the opportunities in my life have all lined up.
Q: You grew up in Tennessee, which has been an epicenter for women's college basketball for so many years due to Tennessee coach Pat Summit. What's it like to now coach against her?
A: It's a big moment – and I don't care who you are or how many times you play them – it's a big moment anytime you compete against her because I think she is tremendous. But there was no special moment or embrace [when I first coached against her]. But I think she knows those things and deserves that place in our lives, especially for young coaches, to be someone to respect beyond measure. Is it a game you have a star next to? Sure, if you win that game, that's what people talk about. We could win the SEC Championship and I could go home for Christmas and people are going to say, 'Did you beat Tennessee?' That's how you are measured in women's basketball in terms of success. Is it great to compete against her? Absolutely, because we want to be the best and you can't go around them, you've got to go through them. So every chance we have to play against them for us is another opportunity to get better and see how close or how far away we are from achieving that.
Q: What do you think it's finally going to take for any SEC program to get to Tennessee's level regularly?
A: You hope the amount of parity in women's basketball continues to improve, and I think that it is and will. Their program is in a [special] place now. They have been good for so long … they are just in a place where kids are recruiting them. The kids that we're trying to recruit are still, 'Well, I'm going to hear from Tennessee first and I'll let you know if it's open for everyone else.' But they have earned that place because they have been such a dominant force in women's college basketball. Do I see it changing? Yeah, I think it will change at a certain point. When Billy [Donovan] first arrived here, that's kind of where Kentucky was in men's basketball and in the SEC in particular. Certainly Kentucky is very strong right now, but Billy and his staff and the group of guys he lured here to compete for championships made it happen on their side. So, you've got this really unique blueprint on how to shake things up in a league that it feels like, 'Here is this one dominant thing that will never change.' Florida men's basketball changed it. So can it be done? Definitely. Is it right here right now? I don't know. They are still awful strong and seem to be getting stronger. And again, that's a credit to her [Coach Summit].
Q: What is the next step for your program to start climbing the ladder?
A: We've got to win a championship. It's just real simple. It's not real easy is the problem. I was having a conversation with one of our assistants the other day that in the history of the SEC, with us currently where we are now with 12 schools, there have only been six schools to have won a championship. You've got a league where only half its members have won a championship and that is obviously because of the dominance of Tennessee. Vanderbilt has been consistently strong for 20 years. Georgia has been consistently strong for 20 years. LSU of late has been a force to be reckoned with. It's really a tough task. Is that what's next for us? Absolutely. Are we going to shy away from talking about it? No. And that doesn't me it's going to happen right away, but that's what we're going to work for every day. If we just keeping taking the right steps in that direction I know we'll achieve it.
Q: In the month of preseason camp, can you name one thing that surprised you about your team?
A: There are a lot of things because of the newness. Every day there is a discovery, good and bad. That's important though, because you want to have as many discoveries in the preseason as you can so hopefully that limits the discoveries during actual game time. I had an idea of defensively of what we were going to be best at this year. I think our team has kind of shown us that, 'Hey, we're not going to just have this one defensive identity.' I think we are going to be able to play defense a couple of different ways very well. That makes me excited because our offense is only going to be as good as our defense. We are going to need, especially early on in the season, a lot of defensive success to lead to early offense and easy offense. That has been on surprise if you want to call it a surprise.
