Published: April 22, 2008 04:44 pm            

Carrick leaves Tech women’s post

Reggie Carrick has resigned as women’s basketball coach at WVU Tech.

Carrick, who oversaw the Tech women for the past four seasons (the first as interim head coach then the final three as full-time head mentor), announced his intentions late last week. He and his wife, Shauna, and children Carter, Liam and Aislin left Sunday for his native Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where he plans to enter the private business world.

“I’ve got the disease,” Carrick said Thursday. “I’ll be back in coaching at some point.”

He was head coach for the Tech women the past three seasons (2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08). Before that, he was interim women’s coach in 2004-05, and was assistant men’s coach to Steve Tucker in 2001-02.

This past year, Tech was 13-18. In 2006-07, Carrick directed Tech to an outstanding 24-9 mark. The Golden Bears won the Mid-South Conference tournament before falling 85-73 to Saint Xavier (Ill.) in the first round of the NAIA national tournament. The effort was a major reversal from the previous campaign, which the Golden Bears stumbled through at 1-23.

“I am very proud of the way we turned a bad program around and won the only championship at Tech in the last 18 years,” Carrick said in a statement. “I’d like to thank all the girls and my assistants and wish Tech nothing but the best with their new direction.”

Carrick said the school’s sports teams were told last week they would have to cut their scholarship money considerably for the coming year.

“I couldn’t figure if they want athletics at the school or want to shut it down” and view sports more as “an auxiliary service. So I decided to do something else,” he said.

Carrick said women’s basketball spent $120,000 for scholarship aid this past year, and a potential decrease — which he pegged at 70 percent — would put it “back at almost exactly what I had (to offer potential players) during the 1-23 season.”

Interim athletics director Pete Kelley Friday said the scholarship reduction plan is “a work in progress” and that he expects to know more this week.

— E-mail:

skeenan@register-herald.com

        

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