UCSC Coaching Vacancy

Over the weekend, UC Santa Cruz announced that Gabby Houston was leaving the program after a “mutual agreement”.

Gabby has coached the Banana Slugs for 6-years typically playing one of the more difficult schedules in the nation. As part of the C2C Conference, the team did not play a conference schedule so they basically acted as an independent before participating in the C2C Tournament. Gabby finished with a 90-74 record during her tenure with her best best season being in 2022 going 19-6 and qualifying for the NCAA Tournament. The school, in the press release, gave the typically wording, “A national search for the program’s next head coach will begin immediately.” (I await my phone call.)

I got to meet Gabby in person at the Elite 8 last season after becoming her stalker once she was announced as the Region X Regional Advisory Committee (RAC) Chair. To show you how much changed now that we have the NCAA Power Index (NPI), I don’t think I sent her a single email this season. I hope my lack of reaching out and harassing her was the not the reason she decided to leave.

Speaking of the RAC, this makes the second coach in the region to leave and both were on the RAC. This has all of the makings of an Agatha Christie novel except for the lack of murders. Gabby was always kind in our correspondences and I will be sad to see her go. My best to her and her family.

UC Santa Cruz joins Concordia in Region X programs looking for a new coach. I do know of one other program that will also be looking for a new coach but I haven’t been given the all clear to announce that one, yet. Unfortunately, the offseason doubles as coaching roulette, but I hope we can keep it to three openings.