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Quotes From Matilda Mossman Press Conference
3/22/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
March 22, 2011
Tulsa Director of Athletics Bubba Cunningham
Opening Statement...
"Last week at the BOK Center was a great week for men's college basketball, but I think today is a great day for women's college basketball. In particular, college basketball at The University of Tulsa. Matilda Mossman has an incredible resume to go along with an incredible personality. Her infectious personality has been able to attract outstanding student-athletes, and she will continue that great leadership here when she attracts a great coaching staff and student-athletes coupled with the great student-athletes that we currently have. Her ties to Oklahoma are second-to-none, and she will be an outstanding leader for our program."
New Tulsa Women's Basketball Head Coach Matilda Mossman
Opening Statement...
"I'm really excited to be here right now. I hope this is just the beginning of a new level of excitement in our women's basketball program here. I've been a head coach at the college level, and I've been an assistant at the college level. I've also been a head coach and an assistant at the high school level. I've even been a freshman coach. I've mopped a lot of floors, and I've washed a lot of uniforms. I've had press conferences before, and I've been in NCAA meetings. I've done it all. The reason I got out of college coaching in the first place is because family was very important to me and I had young children that I wanted to be able to raise and be with every minute. There was an opportunity at a high school and I took that. My youngest son graduated from Norman High School last year, and it was at that point that I felt like I wanted to go back to the college level. I'm just elated that this situation opened up when it did. The timing is right, the area is right. Obviously, I feel very connected to the state of Oklahoma. I feel very connected to the high school and junior college coaches in the state. I'm excited about working with those people in a little bit different way. Yes, I've been to a lot of great places, but more than the places I've been is the people that I've met and the relationships that I have nurtured at those places. Eddie Sutton was at Arkansas when I was there. Lou Holtz and Frank Broyles were there, as well. The reason I am in coaching is because of Gene Keady. He was the men's basketball coach at Western Kentucky when I was a student and a graduate assistant there. He opened up his gym, his office. He allowed me to be everywhere that I was. He was the one who made the call to the University of Arkansas and said that they need to interview this girl and you need to get her hired. I will forever be greatful for Gene Keady for getting me started in the business. Clem Haskins was also at Western Kentucky, and he is from my hometown of Campbellsville, Ky. He is a great man and has a great family. He mentored me throughout my high school and college career. He got me started working camps and gave me lots of responsibility. That hands-on experience was invaluable. From there, I went to K-State. Of course, Jack Hartman was the men's basketball coach there, and Lon Kruger came in after him. Again, great coaching relationships. I feel like from the age of about 20, I've been able to go to a coaching clinic every single day of my life and haven't had to pay a penny for it. I've been to lots of practices and lots of meetings where coaches talked X's and O's. Those people became my mentors. When I went to Illinois State, Kevin Stallings was the men's coach there. Kevin and his family have become great friends of mine, and again it was like being at a coaching clinic every single day. When I moved to Norman, Okla., Sherri Coale was the women's basketball coach there, and she came from a little place called Norman High School. Coach Coale just opened up her program to me as well. I've spent a lot of time at their practices and spent a lot of time working camps for Coach Coale. She has been very open and allowed me to do a lot of different things with her program. I was fortunate enough to coach her daughter, Chandler, this past year as a freshman at Norman High School. Which brings us to now - I'm excited about being part of a great institution. I'm excited about being part of a great athletic department. I think we have every reason to be successful here. I look at last year's team, and I look at the fact that they were on the cusp of having a much better season than they did. I think we have great athletes in place and as I look at them, it even more confirms my belief in what they're going to be capable of doing. Winning and losing snowballs. If you lose a close game, than you might lose the next close game. But if you win a close game, then you're probably going to win the next close game. It just has a domino affect. When you win, you keep winning, and when you lose, unfortunately, you keep losing. But they were on the cusp of really doing great things here last year. I think we can take that and we can build on that. Obviously, we've got a few more spots to fill, and we're going to try to fill those spots with people that we need to make our team better and our program better. But I think we have every reason to be successful here. Because today there's change, I think everybody has to understand that there's going to be change. That's one thing our players are going to have to understand, that's one thing we talked with them about last night. There's going to be change, because if you keep doing what you've always done, then you're going to keep getting what you've always gotten. Over the past few years, I don't think any of them have gotten what they really want, so there's going to be change. Whether that is a change in attitude or a change in work ethic or a change in expectations, change in what they believe, change in that commitment, whatever that is, there's going to be change. Some people are going to embrace that and be excited about it, and there might be somebody that doesn't want change, so they're going to choose a different path. My expectation is that this is a group that's hungry to be successful, and this is a group that really wants to commit and wants to do the right thing. They want to win basketball games, and we're going to bring in a staff that's going to give them their best shot every single day. That was my promise to them last night. I want to give them my best shot every single day, and the only thing I expect from them is to give me their best shot every single day. I think if they can embrace that and be committed to that, than there is no reason why we can't be successful.
Former Tulsa Player Kara Vaughan
On how excited she was when she found out her former high school coach was hired...
"I think it's awesome. She (Coach Mossman) is such a great person on and off the court. She's the kind of coach that likes to build relationships with her players. I became so close to her through high school and even while I was in college. I think it's a great hire for this program, and I'm really excited for everybody who gets to be involved with her and who gets to know her in the Tulsa area."
On if she is a relationship-type coach...
"We have a great relationship, and she has a great relationship with all her players. Over Christmas Break, we (former Norman players) would all go home and visit her. She would tell us that if we wanted to get some shots up that the gym would be open. We would all go over there and get some practice time in. That speaks to the type of person that she is. She is very involved with you as a player."
On what she told her teammates after finding out about the hire...
"They were all calling me and asking questions about her, and I told them that she is a great person. It's very exciting for the program, and I told them that they are going to love her. I want them to experience what I got to experience with her as a player."
On how much this hiring means to Vaughan...
"It's really exciting, and I'm so happy for (Coach Mossman) and for the girls, too. Before I went to Norman High, she asked me why I wanted to play for her. I told her because I wanted to win. She told me that she was going to make that happen. She had such high expectations for me and she was going to push me to my limit."
Tulsa Rising Junior Taleya Mayberry
On how happy Kara Vaughan is about seeing her old coach taking over for Tulsa...
"Kara had a good career here for four years and came from being coached by Coach Mossman. She's excited and elated about the new hiring and that just gives us a good feeling because we trust our teammates feelings. We know that we're bringing somebody good into the program."
On the message to the team at the meeting prior to the official press conference...
"She told us to stay focused and not to give up. The past couple of years have not been going too well, but she asked us to embrace the change and just know that we are capable of winning here."
On the hiring invigorating the program...
"The team talked about it last night after we met with Coach Mossman. We had a refreshing feeling. It feels like a new start. We want to take away everything that we've been through and just start over again."
On the goal of the team heading into the offseason and into next year...
"We have to get back on board. Of course, we have to go through workouts and training. We have to work even harder to be together as one with all these changes coming in. We have to work twice as hard as we normally would."
On if Mayberry knew Mossman prior to the hiring...
"We (Booker T. Washington HS) played against Norman (High School) a couple of times. She brought that up in the meeting last night about how they beat us."
On the process of going from El Paso to now with not knowing who the coach would be...
"It's been both nervous and exciting at the same time. It's been suspenseful wondering who they were going to bring in, what should we expect and what changes were going to be made. We were all calling each other asking if any of us had heard anything about the new coach. We all feel real good about the hiring and we're all excited about Coach Mossman."
Tulsa Rising Junior Jessica McQuin
On the excitement of bringing in Coach Mossman...
"Before a couple of days ago, I didn't know anything about her. Taleya sent me a text message that we hired a new coach and it's Coach Mossman. It was Kara's old coach and she told us that Coach Mossman is going to be really good. We had a couple conversations about her and we looked at her resume. We were interested in her and when we finally got to meet her yesterday and talk to her a bit, it was exciting because we knew we were about to change everything. All-in-all it's just a lot of excitement about the direction of the program."
On what Kara said to the team about Coach Mossman...
"Kara told us that her team's work hard and the No. 1 reason why they were successful is because they had a group of girls that were committed to wanting to win. That's the biggest thing - Coach Mossman can come in with a plan for us, but if we're not committed to it, than we will not be successful. We are the ones on the court, so we have to be committed to what she is trying to bring to us."
On the team meeting that occurred before the official press conference...
"The meeting was just reassurance into what's about to happen. It's a new start, a whole new thing. It was refreshing because everything is new for us. After I left the room, I felt confident in what we're about to do as a basketball program. We feel like this hiring is going to rejuvenate the whole women's basketball program at The University of Tulsa and I'm just excited to be apart of the change that's about to happen."
On what has been going on since El Paso before the team found out about it's new coach...
"It's been scary because I've never been through this process so I didn't know what was going to happen. It was a void that needed to be filled and we were just wondering who was going to come in and take over."
