Gators assistant Brenda Mock Kirkpatrick ready for UNC-Asheville challenge
Monday, May 7, 2012 | Women's Basketball, Men's Swimming & Diving, Chris Harry
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Amanda Butler is growing a coaching tree.
It may be a sapling, but it's a tree, all right. And now it has its first real branch.
The announcement Monday that Brenda Mock Kirkpatrick, assistant at Florida the last six seasons, had been named head coach of the women's team at North Carolina-Asheville means Butler has launched the career for protege to be a first-time head coach.
Not that Kirkpatrick didn't do her part.
“My first boss and head coach used to tell me you always want to go someplace and leave things better than you found them,” Butler said. “Brenda's fingerprints are all over this program. From Day 1, she helped us take things from a level that was not acceptable in Gator Nation to the place we are now; a place we feel good about.”
She obviously caught the eye of the folks in Asheville.
The school reached out to Kirkpatrick, whose family still lives 40 minutes away in her hometown of Waynesville, N.C., after seeing how she helped a UF women's program that was a wreck before Butler arrived via UNC-Charlotte in 2006.
Alongside Butler, Kirkpatrick did her part in building a program that reached the NCAA Tournament for a second time on their watch this season and upset Ohio State in first-round play before falling to eventual national champion Baylor in the tournament in the second.
“That's what was especially rewarding,” Kirkpatrick said of her time at UF. “Seeing the fruits of our labor.”
She'll be rolling up her sleeves in taking over the Bulldogs, inheriting a program from the Big South Conference that went 7-23 last season, including defeats in the last 12 games, and has had four straight losing seasons.
The Bulldogs, however, won their league in 2007 and advance to the NCAA Tournament, losing to LSU in the first round, so there are possibilities.
There's just a big difference between UF and UNCA.
“Being a smaller school does present some challenges. We're not going to be chartering flights and staying at the Marriott,” Kirkpatrick said. “That being said, you can recruit there probably within a 4-hour radius. You've got Charlotte.You've got East Tennessee. There's talent there that can help you win in the Big South.”
It'll be up to Kirkpatrick, 33, to mine that talent and groom it.
Butler, meanwhile, will press on minus the assistant and close friend who has been at her side both seasons at UNCC and all five in Gainesville.
“I've never coached a game without Brenda as my assistant,” Butler said. “She's outstanding and is so ready for this opportunity. I'm so proud of her that it's hard to linger on the negative of her leaving for too long. She's not only fulling part of her dream of being a head coach, but she gets to do it in her own backyard. That's super cool.”
