LINKS
--Adair has ‘national championship’ aspirations at ASU (by Jesse Morrison, ASUDevils.com/Mar. 29, 2021)
RAY ANDERSON
“It is a special day for us at Sun Devil Athletics and ASU. To start us off, Dr. Crow has been here a number of years, but he hasn’t been here 25 years, so he’s never had the pleasure of introducing a women’s head basketball coach here at Arizona State, am I correct?
Michael Crow: No, because Charli was here from 1900 until now (laughing).
RA: and therefore, we felt it appropriate that our esteemed leader have the first opportunity to share in the joy of today.
PRESIDENT MICHAEL CROW
“Thank you Ray, it really is a great opportunity as Ray said. Charli had been a coach here for such a long time and did a fantastic job, so following a person that has done so well is always a challenge, so you have to find the right person. Natasha Adair with her coaching experience, her playing experience, and all aspects of her life. Her commitment to the student athletes, the total success of the student athlete, graduating everyone, competing to win the Pac-12. There's some no-slouch teams in the Pac-12 competing to be in the tournament every year and taking Sun Devil Women's Basketball to the absolute highest level. We're at that level, we want to take the next step which is to be competitive every year and Natasha brings the drive, the spirit, the competitiveness, the edge if you will. I think it's important for the student athletes to experience. We are very very excited, I think we've got a great environment here at ASU, great commitment to women's sports, all-in, totally committed to making things work. We're very excited to take the next step and move in the next direction, move in the next pathway. Ray does a great job finding great coaches, and moving these great coaches forward. He has a way of spotting the best and bringing them in and making things happen. Athletics, as you all know, is complex. Student athletes are emerging adults moving on with their lives, they're busy taking courses, and degree programs while they’re trying to compete at the Olympic level sports, and Olympic level athletes, and Olympic level competition, so it is just a tough environment and Ray has really created for us an opportunity to find talent, move talent forward, and help our coaches be successful. Natasha, we are really excited about you being here and look forward to everything that you have to do. I guess I will say a 25 year run is what we’re looking for… I've been here 20 years.
Ray Anderson:
“Let me add some comments. When it was announced, and Charli informed us that she was retiring after 25 years, we knew that we had a unique challenge on our hands. So when we informed President Crow that this was our situation, his encouragement to me was ‘go get a great one’. Go get a great one that will take us back to A status, with the potential to to A-plus status. He instructed us to go get a premiere coach with A-plus potential. Those were his instructions to me. I turned to our group of senior administrators and said ’we need help! We are going to have to do this as a collective because this is a big, big challenge to follow Charli. We knew we needed someone that had experience, yet also had her own tenacity to do things in a different way! So, I was able to call on my senior colleagues, Christina Wombacher and Sandy Hatfieldclubb and Jean Boyd and Frank Ferrara, and Ken Landphere and Deana Garner-Smith, and other colleagues that we trust such as Dr. Christine Wilkinson, and Linda Vollstedt and Don Bocchi to gather up all hands on deck because we have to get this right. We led an effort through Christina and others and then we needed external help. We needed expertise in the WBB space to help us get it right by getting the right candidate fleshed out for us to consider. We turned to Turnkey, and Katy Young Staudt, who did a wonderful job of working with our committee to get us a number of super qualified, and capable candidates to vet. As we went through the process, it was exhausting, and it was deliberate, and it was complete. I can tell you one thing, when Natasha Adair was presented, and then re-presented, and then we did a zoom, and then we brought her to campus for a visit, it became very clear that the instructions I was given to get a great one, a premiere one, was in our grasp. So, I am thankful and grateful to all of our committee members for all of your help. It was really necessary to get this right. For the formal introduction of Coach Adair, I want to recognize Christina Wombacher. She spent years with women’s basketball and with Charli as the Director of Basketball Ops. I was fortunate enough about seven years ago to actually convince Christina to come work for administration. She was my assistant for four or five years and then it became clear that she had so much more to offer to this department that she was then promoted to Senior Athletic Director, and then two years ago, was promoted to our Senior Women’s Athletic Director, because deserved the opportunity and she has done a splendid job. She has been our leader with this. She is also our senior administrator on Women’s basketball. So who better to lead the charge. One of the things I really want our student athletes to understand was that Christina was the one who insisted from the get go that she had to be in touch with you, and had to get your input in terms of the profile and what we were looking for. Christina is very committed to the women’s basketball program. And, we are hoping that we don’t have to do this for another 25 years.”
Christina Wombacher:
“I couldn’t be more excited to welcome and introduce our new women’s head basketball coach. As Ray said, I would like to thank our search committee, our consultants, all of that help with a national search. A strong competitive candidate pool has led us to a great fit for ASU women’s basketball and Sun Devil Athletics. I would also like to thank my friend Charli Turner Thorne for her 25 years of inspiration and an incredible foundation that she has built. Lastly, thank you to the women’s basketball student athletes for trusting us, your patience, and your input the last few weeks as we conducted our search. I am super excited to introduce Natasha Adair as our new women’s basketball head coach, and welcome her family to Tempe. Natasha Adair, players call her Coach A, she has elevated every program that she has led. With experience following long-tenured successful coaches, she took her Delaware Blue Hens to back-to-back 20-win seasons, and a trip to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in nearly a decade. Coach Adair was named the 2021 Colonial Athletic Association (CAC) Coach Of The Year and was part of two USA Basketball gold medals. Coach Adair’s leadership extends well beyond the basketball court. Her teams excel in the classroom and in the community. Her ability to create a safe space for student athletes and find their voice is extraordinary, and she has been recognized as a game changer for social justice. With no further ado, it is my honor to introduce Arizona State University’s newest Head Coach, Natasha Adair.
Natasha Adair:
“Thank you all. Thank you. President Crow, thank you. Vice President of Athletics, Ray Anderson, thank you. Christina, thank you. This is an amazing opportunity and I am excited. I'm honored just to have the distinction of leading this women’s basketball program. I wouldn't be here without all of these special people. The committee, you all have been outstanding ambassadors for the university. You all have told me the story. Your longevity here speaks to the commitment, and I knew right away once I left, that this was the place I needed to be. The alignment, the vision, President Crow, just the innovation, Ray, the national brand. ASU is a place that everyone can call home. It is a place that you invest in and also a place that invests in you. This has just been a special moment for my family and I, and I am truly excited and ready to get started. To Charli Turner Thorne, thank you. She’s laid the foundation for this program and like Ray mentioned, the platform has been laid. Now we want to take it a step further, but I would be remissed if I did not thank her and all the other people that came before her as well. As I take on this program, as I lead these young women, please know that I will lead with love. I will encourage them, I will inspire them. I will encourage them to take risks so they know calculated risks, so they know what they can accomplish. I will be there every step of the way encouraging them along their journey towards success. ASU fans and alumni, I can’t wait for you all to see our team on the floor. We’re gonna dominate with defense. We’re going to push that ball in transition, and we’re going to score. We’re going to put points on the board, we are going to score. We’re going to be relentless rebounders. But you know what, we’re going to do it the right way. We're going to give up the good for the great shot. We are going to execute. We are going to value possessions, and they’re going to have fun while they’re doing it. Our formula is: defend, rebound, run, and score. In that order. And I’ll say it again. Defend, rebound, run and score. We want to make sure that whoever we play, they’re uncomfortable– they’re uncomfortable every step of the way. To the players, we talked briefly, but this is your program, this is your team, and you matter. This will be a player-led coach-supported program, and we will get back to your why and we will take it a step further. We will do this together. I cannot wait to get started. I cannot wait to get in the lab with you because there is so much that we want to do and there are so many things that we want to accomplish. I cannot wait, I am super excited. We came here to win and when you think of the Sun Devil way, it’s to win. But it is to play with passion and character first. We are going to serve, we are going to commit to our community. We are going to graduate our student athletes and we are going to prepare them for life. ASU, I’m ready. Fans, alumni, players, and supporters– it’s time to go. It’s time to get to work. Thank you so much.”
NATASHA ADAIR QUOTES
On coming west and it relates to recruiting, and knowing the other black head coaches in the Pac-12:
“Well, I’ll touch on the recruiting piece. Having been coaching now for almost 25 years I wouldn’t differentiate the coast. I would call myself a global recruiter. I have coached, and I have recruited players internationally. I’ve recruited players on the east coast, midwest, and now the west. Where I currently was, we actually had two players from Gilbert, so I am very familiar with the talent across the board so I don’t see that as a challenge. In regards to representation here in the Pac-12, I do know Charmin Smith and Adia Barnes, but I also know Cori Close. I also know Tara VanDerveer, so I am very familiar with the coaches in this league– next level coaches. I will tell you, it’s a community. Since I signed on to be the head women’s basketball coach everyone in the Pac-12 has reached out and that speaks volumes for this conference, for the competitiveness, but also just who they are as people.”
On what she’s learned from past coaching experiences that have led to this:
“The biggest thing is– is you have to be an advocate for young people. As a coach you’re going to prepare them to compete, you’re going to prepare them on game night, but you have to prepare them as young women. Every step of the way at every place I have been, we were able to have success because we empowered our student athletes. So, it’s bigger than basketball. Obviously the goal is to win, but you are going to win internally when you win with your student athletes.”
On being a game changer for social justice and blending that with winning:
“When you empower your student athletes to use their voice they become stronger as people. I think that as student athletes, and being a part of an athletic department, we are the doorstep to the community. So, we use our platform in a different way. We have different channels and avenues to get messaging out, so as a women’s basketball coach it cannot just be about x’s and o’s. You have to empower them, so that will increase the product that you put on the floor. It’s really using your platform as a student athlete to bring about awareness and also impact change.”
On the hiring process:
“It was exciting. I was just talking to Christina… the word I would use is organized. Very, very organized. Very detailed. You knew what you were getting here at ASU. The investment by all. The commitment by all. This is a destination job. This is a job that is for our student athletes that promotes student athlete welfare, but ASU when I stepped on campus I was blown away by all the things that we can sell, by all the people that are invested not only in just athletics, but in the university and in the community. It's a holistic experience for our student athletes to be a part of. I knew right away that if I had this opportunity that it would mean everything to me.”
On talking with the players:
“It was awesome. We found out nicknames and fun facts. It was more about me just getting to know them and talking to them. We obviously haven’t gone in depth but I wanted them to know that I am here for them, and that they came here to win and we’re going to work. We are going to work our tails off, but we’re going to have fun while we do it and we are going to make sure that all their “Whys” matter, and it’ll be on display every time you see them play.”
On coming into a successful conference:
“It’s always great to be in good company. When you have a competitive conference you can recruit the best student athletes to perform. It’s great to talk about what we have here at ASU, but when you go into the house and you can sell the conference and competitive basketball night in and night out, who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?”
On any prior relationship with Charli and contacting her:
“Not yet. She is on the contact list, but not as of yet.”
On paving her own legacy:
“I think you come right in. You don’t waste time. You know that this is a championship level program, but you put your stamp on it in how we build our culture, and how we compete and how we work tirelessly every day in the gym, in the classroom, in the community. It is something that is not going to happen overnight. It’s a process, but I think as long as you– like Ray said– respect the past, and understand this is where we are, but moving forward it’ll be Coach A’s way. What that means for our student athletes and what that means for our program, our fans, it will be a process in taking a step day by day in how we want to play in how we want to perform and compete for national championships.”
On when she thinks of ASU basketball:
“Now, it’s a winning tradition. That is not going to change. Now, we want to take it a step further. We want to contend for a national championship. We want to get to the final four. We want to win national championships here. To be able to do that, our student athletes are performers. They are exceptional student athletes, but we have to now push a little harder in certain ways and work a little harder. Will that be a different style of play, different style of what we emphasize in practice? I am sure it will be, but the mindset of our student athletes is that they are here to win. They are going to work and we are going to work together to keep moving forward.”
RAY ANDERSON QUOTES
On what stood out the most about Natasha:
“When we started out on this journey, President Crow and I agreed that this was going to be a really wonderful opportunity to try to move the program forward. We also knew that we had a very unique set of circumstances here. Our esteemed coach Charli had been here 25 years. I knew that to have someone that had experience who would respect the past, yet not be intimidated by the 25 years would be able to come in here and take the best of those circumstances and really move this program forward. As we went through our due diligence and became even more convinced that her experience at first, Georgetown, following a 20-something year tenured head coach and then likewise at Delaware following in the footsteps of a coach that had been there 20+ years. You put all of that together with our holistic approach to what this is about because ladies, it’s just not about x’s and o’s in your basketball experience. It is about the whole experience here we commit to you about a championship life experience here at ASU. When we factored all of those things in, it became clear that one stood out amongst all of them, and that was Coach Adair. That is what really was important to recognize and be able to appreciate and respect what had been here for 25 years, but not be at all intimidated about knowing that there are appropriate changes to be made in her style going forward and we were going to blast our way towards that, and that is why she is sitting here proudly next to me, I hope.”
CHRISTINA WOMBACHER QUOTES
On what stood out the most about Natasha:
“I would say her player-led coach-supported was huge. Her culture and putting the student athlete and the human component first we talked a lot about. The modern student athlete and how times have changed since we’ve played over time. Her passion for this place, her passion to win, and the family atmosphere that she has developed with her student athletes, we know that she will here and grow that here.”
--Adair has ‘national championship’ aspirations at ASU (by Jesse Morrison, ASUDevils.com/Mar. 29, 2021)
RAY ANDERSON
“It is a special day for us at Sun Devil Athletics and ASU. To start us off, Dr. Crow has been here a number of years, but he hasn’t been here 25 years, so he’s never had the pleasure of introducing a women’s head basketball coach here at Arizona State, am I correct?
Michael Crow: No, because Charli was here from 1900 until now (laughing).
RA: and therefore, we felt it appropriate that our esteemed leader have the first opportunity to share in the joy of today.
PRESIDENT MICHAEL CROW
“Thank you Ray, it really is a great opportunity as Ray said. Charli had been a coach here for such a long time and did a fantastic job, so following a person that has done so well is always a challenge, so you have to find the right person. Natasha Adair with her coaching experience, her playing experience, and all aspects of her life. Her commitment to the student athletes, the total success of the student athlete, graduating everyone, competing to win the Pac-12. There's some no-slouch teams in the Pac-12 competing to be in the tournament every year and taking Sun Devil Women's Basketball to the absolute highest level. We're at that level, we want to take the next step which is to be competitive every year and Natasha brings the drive, the spirit, the competitiveness, the edge if you will. I think it's important for the student athletes to experience. We are very very excited, I think we've got a great environment here at ASU, great commitment to women's sports, all-in, totally committed to making things work. We're very excited to take the next step and move in the next direction, move in the next pathway. Ray does a great job finding great coaches, and moving these great coaches forward. He has a way of spotting the best and bringing them in and making things happen. Athletics, as you all know, is complex. Student athletes are emerging adults moving on with their lives, they're busy taking courses, and degree programs while they’re trying to compete at the Olympic level sports, and Olympic level athletes, and Olympic level competition, so it is just a tough environment and Ray has really created for us an opportunity to find talent, move talent forward, and help our coaches be successful. Natasha, we are really excited about you being here and look forward to everything that you have to do. I guess I will say a 25 year run is what we’re looking for… I've been here 20 years.
ASU women’s basketball found it’s new coach. @CoachAdair says she is looking to take the program to the next level ?? https://t.co/GbExqpLTOg
— PHNX Sports (@PHNX_Sports) March 29, 2022
Ray Anderson:
“Let me add some comments. When it was announced, and Charli informed us that she was retiring after 25 years, we knew that we had a unique challenge on our hands. So when we informed President Crow that this was our situation, his encouragement to me was ‘go get a great one’. Go get a great one that will take us back to A status, with the potential to to A-plus status. He instructed us to go get a premiere coach with A-plus potential. Those were his instructions to me. I turned to our group of senior administrators and said ’we need help! We are going to have to do this as a collective because this is a big, big challenge to follow Charli. We knew we needed someone that had experience, yet also had her own tenacity to do things in a different way! So, I was able to call on my senior colleagues, Christina Wombacher and Sandy Hatfieldclubb and Jean Boyd and Frank Ferrara, and Ken Landphere and Deana Garner-Smith, and other colleagues that we trust such as Dr. Christine Wilkinson, and Linda Vollstedt and Don Bocchi to gather up all hands on deck because we have to get this right. We led an effort through Christina and others and then we needed external help. We needed expertise in the WBB space to help us get it right by getting the right candidate fleshed out for us to consider. We turned to Turnkey, and Katy Young Staudt, who did a wonderful job of working with our committee to get us a number of super qualified, and capable candidates to vet. As we went through the process, it was exhausting, and it was deliberate, and it was complete. I can tell you one thing, when Natasha Adair was presented, and then re-presented, and then we did a zoom, and then we brought her to campus for a visit, it became very clear that the instructions I was given to get a great one, a premiere one, was in our grasp. So, I am thankful and grateful to all of our committee members for all of your help. It was really necessary to get this right. For the formal introduction of Coach Adair, I want to recognize Christina Wombacher. She spent years with women’s basketball and with Charli as the Director of Basketball Ops. I was fortunate enough about seven years ago to actually convince Christina to come work for administration. She was my assistant for four or five years and then it became clear that she had so much more to offer to this department that she was then promoted to Senior Athletic Director, and then two years ago, was promoted to our Senior Women’s Athletic Director, because deserved the opportunity and she has done a splendid job. She has been our leader with this. She is also our senior administrator on Women’s basketball. So who better to lead the charge. One of the things I really want our student athletes to understand was that Christina was the one who insisted from the get go that she had to be in touch with you, and had to get your input in terms of the profile and what we were looking for. Christina is very committed to the women’s basketball program. And, we are hoping that we don’t have to do this for another 25 years.”
‘I will encourage them, I will inspire them’: ASU introduces new @SunDevilWBB coach @CoachAdair. Our @Brooke_Tyburski was in Tempe and has the story. ??https://t.co/jzhn7ybWNq pic.twitter.com/Kr8ejiS3Db
— Cronkite News: Phoenix Sports (@sportscronkite) March 29, 2022
Christina Wombacher:
“I couldn’t be more excited to welcome and introduce our new women’s head basketball coach. As Ray said, I would like to thank our search committee, our consultants, all of that help with a national search. A strong competitive candidate pool has led us to a great fit for ASU women’s basketball and Sun Devil Athletics. I would also like to thank my friend Charli Turner Thorne for her 25 years of inspiration and an incredible foundation that she has built. Lastly, thank you to the women’s basketball student athletes for trusting us, your patience, and your input the last few weeks as we conducted our search. I am super excited to introduce Natasha Adair as our new women’s basketball head coach, and welcome her family to Tempe. Natasha Adair, players call her Coach A, she has elevated every program that she has led. With experience following long-tenured successful coaches, she took her Delaware Blue Hens to back-to-back 20-win seasons, and a trip to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in nearly a decade. Coach Adair was named the 2021 Colonial Athletic Association (CAC) Coach Of The Year and was part of two USA Basketball gold medals. Coach Adair’s leadership extends well beyond the basketball court. Her teams excel in the classroom and in the community. Her ability to create a safe space for student athletes and find their voice is extraordinary, and she has been recognized as a game changer for social justice. With no further ado, it is my honor to introduce Arizona State University’s newest Head Coach, Natasha Adair.
Natasha Adair:
“Thank you all. Thank you. President Crow, thank you. Vice President of Athletics, Ray Anderson, thank you. Christina, thank you. This is an amazing opportunity and I am excited. I'm honored just to have the distinction of leading this women’s basketball program. I wouldn't be here without all of these special people. The committee, you all have been outstanding ambassadors for the university. You all have told me the story. Your longevity here speaks to the commitment, and I knew right away once I left, that this was the place I needed to be. The alignment, the vision, President Crow, just the innovation, Ray, the national brand. ASU is a place that everyone can call home. It is a place that you invest in and also a place that invests in you. This has just been a special moment for my family and I, and I am truly excited and ready to get started. To Charli Turner Thorne, thank you. She’s laid the foundation for this program and like Ray mentioned, the platform has been laid. Now we want to take it a step further, but I would be remissed if I did not thank her and all the other people that came before her as well. As I take on this program, as I lead these young women, please know that I will lead with love. I will encourage them, I will inspire them. I will encourage them to take risks so they know calculated risks, so they know what they can accomplish. I will be there every step of the way encouraging them along their journey towards success. ASU fans and alumni, I can’t wait for you all to see our team on the floor. We’re gonna dominate with defense. We’re going to push that ball in transition, and we’re going to score. We’re going to put points on the board, we are going to score. We’re going to be relentless rebounders. But you know what, we’re going to do it the right way. We're going to give up the good for the great shot. We are going to execute. We are going to value possessions, and they’re going to have fun while they’re doing it. Our formula is: defend, rebound, run, and score. In that order. And I’ll say it again. Defend, rebound, run and score. We want to make sure that whoever we play, they’re uncomfortable– they’re uncomfortable every step of the way. To the players, we talked briefly, but this is your program, this is your team, and you matter. This will be a player-led coach-supported program, and we will get back to your why and we will take it a step further. We will do this together. I cannot wait to get started. I cannot wait to get in the lab with you because there is so much that we want to do and there are so many things that we want to accomplish. I cannot wait, I am super excited. We came here to win and when you think of the Sun Devil way, it’s to win. But it is to play with passion and character first. We are going to serve, we are going to commit to our community. We are going to graduate our student athletes and we are going to prepare them for life. ASU, I’m ready. Fans, alumni, players, and supporters– it’s time to go. It’s time to get to work. Thank you so much.”
NATASHA ADAIR QUOTES
On coming west and it relates to recruiting, and knowing the other black head coaches in the Pac-12:
“Well, I’ll touch on the recruiting piece. Having been coaching now for almost 25 years I wouldn’t differentiate the coast. I would call myself a global recruiter. I have coached, and I have recruited players internationally. I’ve recruited players on the east coast, midwest, and now the west. Where I currently was, we actually had two players from Gilbert, so I am very familiar with the talent across the board so I don’t see that as a challenge. In regards to representation here in the Pac-12, I do know Charmin Smith and Adia Barnes, but I also know Cori Close. I also know Tara VanDerveer, so I am very familiar with the coaches in this league– next level coaches. I will tell you, it’s a community. Since I signed on to be the head women’s basketball coach everyone in the Pac-12 has reached out and that speaks volumes for this conference, for the competitiveness, but also just who they are as people.”
On what she’s learned from past coaching experiences that have led to this:
“The biggest thing is– is you have to be an advocate for young people. As a coach you’re going to prepare them to compete, you’re going to prepare them on game night, but you have to prepare them as young women. Every step of the way at every place I have been, we were able to have success because we empowered our student athletes. So, it’s bigger than basketball. Obviously the goal is to win, but you are going to win internally when you win with your student athletes.”
On being a game changer for social justice and blending that with winning:
“When you empower your student athletes to use their voice they become stronger as people. I think that as student athletes, and being a part of an athletic department, we are the doorstep to the community. So, we use our platform in a different way. We have different channels and avenues to get messaging out, so as a women’s basketball coach it cannot just be about x’s and o’s. You have to empower them, so that will increase the product that you put on the floor. It’s really using your platform as a student athlete to bring about awareness and also impact change.”
On the hiring process:
“It was exciting. I was just talking to Christina… the word I would use is organized. Very, very organized. Very detailed. You knew what you were getting here at ASU. The investment by all. The commitment by all. This is a destination job. This is a job that is for our student athletes that promotes student athlete welfare, but ASU when I stepped on campus I was blown away by all the things that we can sell, by all the people that are invested not only in just athletics, but in the university and in the community. It's a holistic experience for our student athletes to be a part of. I knew right away that if I had this opportunity that it would mean everything to me.”
On talking with the players:
“It was awesome. We found out nicknames and fun facts. It was more about me just getting to know them and talking to them. We obviously haven’t gone in depth but I wanted them to know that I am here for them, and that they came here to win and we’re going to work. We are going to work our tails off, but we’re going to have fun while we do it and we are going to make sure that all their “Whys” matter, and it’ll be on display every time you see them play.”
On coming into a successful conference:
“It’s always great to be in good company. When you have a competitive conference you can recruit the best student athletes to perform. It’s great to talk about what we have here at ASU, but when you go into the house and you can sell the conference and competitive basketball night in and night out, who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?”
On any prior relationship with Charli and contacting her:
“Not yet. She is on the contact list, but not as of yet.”
On paving her own legacy:
“I think you come right in. You don’t waste time. You know that this is a championship level program, but you put your stamp on it in how we build our culture, and how we compete and how we work tirelessly every day in the gym, in the classroom, in the community. It is something that is not going to happen overnight. It’s a process, but I think as long as you– like Ray said– respect the past, and understand this is where we are, but moving forward it’ll be Coach A’s way. What that means for our student athletes and what that means for our program, our fans, it will be a process in taking a step day by day in how we want to play in how we want to perform and compete for national championships.”
On when she thinks of ASU basketball:
“Now, it’s a winning tradition. That is not going to change. Now, we want to take it a step further. We want to contend for a national championship. We want to get to the final four. We want to win national championships here. To be able to do that, our student athletes are performers. They are exceptional student athletes, but we have to now push a little harder in certain ways and work a little harder. Will that be a different style of play, different style of what we emphasize in practice? I am sure it will be, but the mindset of our student athletes is that they are here to win. They are going to work and we are going to work together to keep moving forward.”
RAY ANDERSON QUOTES
On what stood out the most about Natasha:
“When we started out on this journey, President Crow and I agreed that this was going to be a really wonderful opportunity to try to move the program forward. We also knew that we had a very unique set of circumstances here. Our esteemed coach Charli had been here 25 years. I knew that to have someone that had experience who would respect the past, yet not be intimidated by the 25 years would be able to come in here and take the best of those circumstances and really move this program forward. As we went through our due diligence and became even more convinced that her experience at first, Georgetown, following a 20-something year tenured head coach and then likewise at Delaware following in the footsteps of a coach that had been there 20+ years. You put all of that together with our holistic approach to what this is about because ladies, it’s just not about x’s and o’s in your basketball experience. It is about the whole experience here we commit to you about a championship life experience here at ASU. When we factored all of those things in, it became clear that one stood out amongst all of them, and that was Coach Adair. That is what really was important to recognize and be able to appreciate and respect what had been here for 25 years, but not be at all intimidated about knowing that there are appropriate changes to be made in her style going forward and we were going to blast our way towards that, and that is why she is sitting here proudly next to me, I hope.”
CHRISTINA WOMBACHER QUOTES
On what stood out the most about Natasha:
“I would say her player-led coach-supported was huge. Her culture and putting the student athlete and the human component first we talked a lot about. The modern student athlete and how times have changed since we’ve played over time. Her passion for this place, her passion to win, and the family atmosphere that she has developed with her student athletes, we know that she will here and grow that here.”