Well, the dust has finally settled on the resignation of Penn State women’s basketball coach Rene Portland. Since the news conference, there has been little news to come out of Penn State regarding Portland’s replacement.
In this week’s edition of Morelli OnLion, we’ll take a look at the possible successors as Penn State tries to fill the head coaching vacancy.
With baseball season upon us, we’ll touch all the bases this week — women’s hoops, wrestling and spring football.
Who’s Next?
Portland resigned nearly two weeks ago, and it appears that the search for her replacement is in full swing. Penn State recently reported that an eight-member committee will begin the search for a new coach.
Faculty athletics representative Dr. Scott Kretchmar will lead the eight member committee.
Kretchmar will be joined by Kim Daniels, operations director of Penn State Sports Medicine Center; Bruce Ellis, the Big Ten’s advisory commission representative; Kam Gissendanner, women’s basketball player; Russ Rose, women’s volleyball head coach; Susan Delaney-Scheetz, associate athletics director and senior woman administrator; Susan Sherburne, women’s basketball academic advisor; and Vicki Triponey, vice president of student affairs.
Of course, athletic director Tim Curley and Penn State president Graham Spanier will have the final say on who patrols the bench next season.
So who are the top candidates? We’ve come up with a short list of those who seem likely candidates. Let’s run them down, Casey Kasem-style, from the bottom to the top.
5. Susan Robinson Fruchtl — Most Penn State fans know her as just Susan Robinson, one of the most prolific scorers in Lady Lion basketball history. She recently completed her third season (eighth overall) in her second stint as an assistant coach under Portland.
Robinson Fruchtl is Penn State’s lone Wade Trophy Winner and finished her career with 2,253 points, a then-Lady Lion record.
She was an assistant coach at North Allegheny High School near Pittsburgh and was head coach at Beaver Area High School from 2000 to 2004.
She’s young, which probably works in her favor. But she would be coming from the Portland pipeline, which probably works against her.
Definitely the dark horse candidate.
4. Jennifer Rizzotti — The head coach of the Hartford Hawks, Rizzotti’s name has been coming up a lot recently as several big-name programs — Penn State, LSU and Texas — look to fill head coaching vacancies.
Rizzotti comes from a winning program, UConn. She has built Hartford into an American East power in just seven years, winning three conference championships over the past five years and making three trips to the NCAA Women’s Tournament.
Recently, she led the Hawks to their first-ever victory in the tourney, as Hartford defeated Temple in the opening round.
In interviews, however, Rizzotti has said that she is comfortable at Hartford and has no desire to leave the program. It’s hard to believe, though, if she were offered a job at a high-profile school like Penn State that she would be able turn it down.
3. Carolyn Peck — Peck was recently fired from the head coaching position at the University of Florida after amassing a 69-74 record over five seasons. When your football team and men’s basketball team win national championships in the same year, the same is expected of women’s hoops. In the end, Peck just couldn’t live up to those expectations.
Peck was successful at Purdue and in the WNBA. The African-American coach would be an excellent fit at Penn State. She does have one big thing working against her, however. One of her assistants at Florida was Jose Mori. He’s married to Portland’s daughter, Christine.
2. Terri Mitchell — You may not know the name, but Mitchell seems like a good choice for Penn State — if she’s interested.
In 11 seasons at Marquette University, Mitchell has taken her squad to six NCAA Tournaments and three WNITs. She has been named the Big East Coach of the Year three times.
Mitchell is a Pennsylvania native and played at Duquesne University, but she has no ties to Penn State. That could work for or against her, depending on what the search committee is, well, searching for.
1. Suzie McConnell-Serio — Her name has been coming up over and over again.
The former Penn State point guard and gold medal-winning Olympian seems like the most likely choice.
However, she might have one big factor working against her.
She has no collegiate coaching experience.
A press release said the nationwide search began Friday. An Internet job posting said, among other things, candidates must have “five years of successful college coaching experience,” which would preclude McConnell-Serio, the most popular choice to replace Portland.
McConnell-Serio has coaching experience at the high school and professional levels, but none in college.
She coached girls’ basketball for 13 years at Pittsburgh’s Oakland Catholic High School, where she won three PIAA Class AAA titles and compiled a 321-86 record. She also coached Penn State point guard Brianne O’Rourke.
She coached in the WNBA and in 2004 was named the league’s coach of the year.
But she has obvious ties to Portland and seemed saddened by her departure.
Still, we’ll go with McConnell-Serio as the best choice with Mitchell a close second.
(Suzie McConnell-Serio (center) flanked by Margo Plotzke and
Kellie Goodman. Photo courtesy of Blue White Illustrated)
More Hoop News
Even though basketball season has been over for some time at Penn State, both the men’s and women’s teams continue to make news.
On the women’s side, senior Amanda Brown took part in the WNBA Pre-Draft Camp.
It was held this weekend at Cleveland State University during the NCAA Women’s Final Four.
The camp gives coaches and general managers a chance to evaluate the skills of approximately 40 prospects from the current senior class. Brown may have a shot in the WNBA. She was an All-Big Ten first team selection for the first time as she completed career-best season. This season, she scored 14.2 points per game.
On the men’s side, Milos Bogetic and Maxwell DuBois have left the team. Coach Ed DeChellis is still trying to get all the pieces of the puzzle to fit as the Lions look to rebound from a miserable 11-19 campaign.
Pataky Update 
(Brad Pataky. Photos courtesy of Blue White Illustrated)
Clearfield Area High School grad Brad Pataky, who was a two-time PIAA champ and three-time finalist for the Bisons, continues to compete and excel for the Penn State wrestling team.
After being thrust into the lineup last year as a true freshman, Pataky redshirted this year and concentrated on competing in open tournaments and various freestyle events.
His latest competition came March 23-25 at Brockport, N.Y., in the Northeast Senior Regional Championship. Pataky won the event, which qualifies him for the U.S. Senior Freestyle National Championship this coming weekend in Las Vegas.
“Bradley’s been very successful on the international level, freestyle level.
By winning Brockport, he’s qualified to go to the final World Team Trials.
He’s scheduled to go to the U.S. Open (in Las Vegas) this weekend but his ribs and knee are dinged up a little bit. I’m not sure what we’re going to do there. We need to figure that out,” Penn State coach Troy Sunderland said Monday.
As for next season, Pataky figures to continue his open and freestyle competitions. Returning starter Mark McKnight will be a senior during the
2007-08 season. Pataky is in the process of trying to obtain an Olympic redshirt year.
“We’ve been working on the Olympic redshirt idea for a long time and trying to understand that process. It’s been difficult to get that all tied together,” Sunderland said.
But, as of Monday, the plan was to have McKnight wrestle and Pataky take an Olympic redshirt. That means when the 2008-09 season rolls around, Pataky would be the starter with three years of eligibility remaining.
Spring Practice Report
(Andrew Quarless. Photo courtesy of Blue White Illustrated)
The Penn State football team is in the midst of its spring drills and the team held its first scrimmage of the year on Saturday. Of course, getting information about the Iranian hostages is easier than getting info from the football program, but here’s what we’ve learned.
Tight end Andrew Quarless and cornerback A.J. Wallace were nicked up, but both injuries were not severe. Both players are expected back at practice this week.
In other news, quarterback Pat Devlin appears to be pushing Daryll Clark for the backup quarterback slot. Anthony Morelli, of course, has the starting job sewn up, but the battle for No. 2 is being waged.
If Clark loses his job at quarterback, there’s a good possibility the PSU coaching staff will move him to linebacker.
Locally, we’ve confirmed that Moshannon Valley’s Ryan Gmerek has made the team as a walk-on. The finance major was a quarterback for the Black Knights, but is expected to play in the secondary for the Nittany Lions.
That’s it for this week. If there’s something you’d like to see or a sport we need to highlight, shoot an e-mail to morellionlion@gmail.com.