Jim3k
04-07-2013, 01:21 PM
Hillary Howard (now Hillary Heieck) shows up today in a sweet story about Cal Women's coach Lindsay Gottlieb. Gottlieb's team is one of today's semifinalists in New Orleans. It turns out that she and Howard were childhood friends who played in the backyard together and fantasized basketball excellence. Howard, as Heieck, is now a senior marketing manager at the Pac-12 network. She and Gottlieb remain close friends.
The story itself, here in the Contra Costa Times (http://www.contracostatimes.com/cal-bears/ci_22959205/cal-womens-basketball-coach-lindsay-gottlieb-knew-destination), is a sweet one for Gottlieb, who played at Brown even as Howard came to Duke. Howard later introduced her to an unknown Duke assistant named Joanne Boyle. Boyle later hired Gottlieb as an assistant at Richmond; then took her to Cal. She left to become the HC at UC Santa Barbara. When Boyle came back east to UVa, Gottlieb returned to Cal as her successor. Since then she's become the most successful Cal coach in many years. Nice story about her, but the Howard connection makes it news at DBR, particularly because Howard was an integral part of Duke's very best women's team--the 1999 runner-up to Purdue (http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=4200&ATCLID=3651912). On the way, that team beat 5th ranked ODU, 12th ranked Georgia and No. 2 (I think) Tennessee.
The story itself, here in the Contra Costa Times (http://www.contracostatimes.com/cal-bears/ci_22959205/cal-womens-basketball-coach-lindsay-gottlieb-knew-destination), is a sweet one for Gottlieb, who played at Brown even as Howard came to Duke. Howard later introduced her to an unknown Duke assistant named Joanne Boyle. Boyle later hired Gottlieb as an assistant at Richmond; then took her to Cal. She left to become the HC at UC Santa Barbara. When Boyle came back east to UVa, Gottlieb returned to Cal as her successor. Since then she's become the most successful Cal coach in many years. Nice story about her, but the Howard connection makes it news at DBR, particularly because Howard was an integral part of Duke's very best women's team--the 1999 runner-up to Purdue (http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=4200&ATCLID=3651912). On the way, that team beat 5th ranked ODU, 12th ranked Georgia and No. 2 (I think) Tennessee.