Today, the athletic department announced the additions of Kaity Healy and Michelle Holmes to the women’s basketball coaching staff:
Healy comes to AU after a series of one-year stops around the east coast: assistant coach for Fairleigh Dickinson’s D-I squad last year, assistant DOBO at Florida International the year prior, and DOBO at Holy Cross during the 2019-2020 season. She graduated from Seton Hall in 2019, a four-year letter winner in basketball. Healy was never a star, starting 17 of her 85 career games and averaging 12 min/game over her career. She was, however, elected to be a captain of the team an impressive three times. Healy was also part of the 2019 class of WBCA’s “So You Want To Be A Coach” program. From WBCA’s website:
“So” participants will learn about the administrative side of coaching, recruiting, how to get hired, skill development, the importance of knowing the rules, and how to balance work and life.
Michelle Holmes returns to AU after having played under Coach Coll from her sophomore year to her senior year. She was named Third Team All-Conference and part of the All-Tournament team her junior year. Holmes also led the team that year with 220 rebounds, which stands as sixth most in program history. As a sophomore, she set the all-time record at AU for FG% in a season with 64.3%, a mark that stands to this day.
Since her graduation in 2016, she has taken a career path focused on public service. She worked for AmeriCorps for two years and as a special agent with the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency within the Defense Department. While it has been six years since basketball was her main focus, her resume makes it clear she has a strong work ethic and an analytical mind. It will be exciting to see how she takes to coaching.
Projection: Roles and Looking Ahead
As Coach Holmes was a (rather successful) post player here at AU, it’s reasonable to assume she’ll coach that position group. Coach Coll was previously in charge of this crew, and while she’ll likely continue to work with them, this frees her up to work with big-picture strategy and the team as a whole.
Coach Healy was a guard at Seton Hall and oversaw that position group at FDU. It stands to reason that she would do the same for the Eagles.
Assuming Nicole Scarff returns as DOBO – a pretty safe assumption, as she’s listed as such on the website – there’s one more role to fill on Coach Coll’s staff. Based on current staff makeup, it would make the most sense to hire a coach with experience working with wings. However, Coach Coll could likely cover that group in a pinch. Neither of the newly hired assistants are obvious fits as recruiting coordinator either, so it would be important to find a coach who’s had experience running a D-I recruiting operation.
Parts of the Whole
These two have taken drastically different paths to come to coach the Eagles. Coach Holmes as a player was a mainstay on the court, starting in every game she played in during her junior and senior years. After graduating, she spent six years working for the federal government before returning to Tenleytown.
Coach Healy, in contrast, has spent the past six years in various leadership roles for college basketball teams. A second-line player for much of her playing career, she was repeatedly named captain at Seton Hall. Her participation in the WBCA coaching clinic shows that she’s been preparing for an opportunity like this for years.
Overall, I think this bodes will for Coach Coll and her staff. Building a staff with diverse experiences and perspectives can only benefit the team. With the whole staff almost in place, this is a crew that looks to have high upside. In a few years, it could easily be the most talented and exciting staff in the Patriot League.