GoHeels Exclusive: First Day On The Job

By Pat James, GoHeels.com

As the women's basketball coaching carousel started spinning and schools came calling for Courtney Banghart once again, her older sister Jen secretly – or not so secretly – hoped she'd leave Princeton and come to North Carolina.

A Montessori school teacher, Jen has lived in Chapel Hill for about six years. Her home is two miles from Carmichael Arena. So, when the UNC job became available in late April, it became her goal to get Banghart here.

Banghart wasn't looking to leave Princeton, where she'd compiled a 254-103 record across 12 seasons. But after Carolina contacted her, she also started hoping she'd end up in Chapel Hill.

"I've gotten so many texts from many of the ACC head coaches just congratulating me and saying how my patience paid off," Banghart told reporters on Wednesday, standing at center court inside Carmichael Arena. "Because I wasn't going to go just anywhere. I had a very clear goal – and it was to be here. And, as luck would have it, it's where I am."

Banghart was officially announced Tuesday as the Tar Heels' new head coach. Wednesday, she flew from New Jersey to Chapel Hill for her first day on the job.

In between attending the Scholar-Athlete Awards luncheon, going to a meet-and-greet with the rest of UNC's coaches and accomplishing a variety of in-house media tasks, Banghart spent about 45 minutes with her new team. That meeting, she said, included "a lot of laughter" and offered both sides a chance to ask questions. But she knows more still need to be answered.

"As I told them, you're balancing the excitement of you want to get started and you want things to move quickly with the fact that it takes time to build relationships," Banghart said. "And I get that. So part of it is it's important for us to be together on this sort of monumental day for the program. And then, like any relationship, it's also important you give it individual time."

Banghart said she'll meet with each player in the coming days, then speak with Carolina's commits. Amid that, she plans to assemble her coaching staff. A few candidates are already on her mind, but she'll also meet with the remaining members of the previous staff on Monday.

Two weeks ago, Bubba Cunningham announced Sylvia Hatchell was resigning after a University-commissioned review of the women's basketball program "found issues that led us to conclude that the program needed to be taken in a new direction." Hatchell went 751-325 in 33 seasons as the Tar Heels' head coach. She led them to a national championship in 1994.

Tuesday night, Banghart said she received a congratulatory email from Hatchell, who offered to be as much of a resource as Banghart needs or wants.

"There's obviously a great legacy to care about and to build on," Banghart said. "But yet, this is a new program right now. It's a new opportunity. And I don't know how important it is how much I knew from what happened and what he said, she said, this said.

"As I get to know each player and where the gap is from where they wanted their experience to be and where it is now, how can I help bridge that gap to get it to be what they want it to be?"

Doing so will require empathy and compassion. Both seemingly come natural to Banghart.

"If you don't care about people, you shouldn't get into coaching," she said. "I love basketball, but I could be a fan and watch more games. … This is an extracurricular activity until I'm told otherwise. It's an additive experience, and we're gonna treat it like that until I'm told otherwise."

One aspect of her job that will be slightly different, though, is recruiting.

Between her eight years as a player and then an assistant coach at Dartmouth and her 12-year tenure at Princeton, Banghart has spent 20 years at Ivy League schools, none of which award athletic scholarships. Still, she found success recruiting against scholarship-offering schools while at Princeton.

With scholarships now at her disposal at UNC, she'll have some freedom that she previously didn't have. The Carolina brand will also help, she said. But most importantly, she'll be recruiting to a place that she believes in, just like she did at Princeton.

"I think the Ivy League has so many wonderful things," Banghart said. "It has tradition, excellence, academic and athletic pairing. So does UNC, right? But what Carolina doesn't have is some of the restrictions that I've had to deal with. So I feel like the sky is the limit here, and I'm inspired by the opportunity to reach the limit."

Banghart inherits a team that went 18-15 last season and reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2015. The Tar Heels will be without top scorer Paris Kea, a third-round WNBA Draft pick. And there could potentially be more roster turnover.

Because of that, Banghart said it's too early to know what her team will look like when the 2019-20 season begins. Her hopes are high, though.

"This is not a place that's broken by any stretch," she said. "It's a place that's had some stress. It's had some disruption. And I'm here to help through that and to hug them through it and to find out what their needs are through it and to try to bridge the gap."

Banghart understands that'll take time. But she's proved her patience.

Players Mentioned

Paris Kea

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