I have to admit that I was quite surprised to see Kelly Greenberg leave here to take the head coaching position with the Boston University women's basketball team.
In part, I was surprised because nobody really knew it was coming, except for possibly Greenberg herself.
The Terriers let Margaret McKeon go on June 1 and announced Greenberg's hiring on July 7. But a source close to the situation said that the hiring process took far less time than that, perhaps as little as a week.
Penn's players did not find out until two days before the press conference.
I also was surprised because I never got the impression that Greenberg felt that she was at some kind of endpoint in her Penn coaching career.
Granted, the graduation of Jewel Clark and Mikaelyn Austin has taken away a considerable amount of offense on the court and leadership off it.
But much of the team's firepower is still there- guards Cat Makarewich, Karen Habrukowich and Maria DiDonato on the perimeter, Jen Fleischer and Katie Kilker in the post, and Joey Rhoads running all over the floor.
It was Greenberg herself who said after the loss to Connecticut in the NCAA Tournament this year that this team felt it could be the first Penn team to win back-to-back Ivy League titles.
No one doubted that.
Now, it will be up to whomever Penn hires to make sure those doubts stay away.
Greenberg told the Philadephia Inquirer's Mel Greenberg- who is not related by blood but is by the sport, having covered women's college basketball in this city since before I was born- that BU Athletic Director Jack Lynch made the move "too hard to turn down"
I guess so, because she had just about everything she could have wanted here.
As a Philadelphia native, Greenberg was coaching in her hometown, with the keys to one of the sport's greatest shrines.
Having played for La Salle before coaching Penn, she was a firm believer in the existence of ghosts in the Palestra, and she would not hesitate to thank them when a break went the Quakers' way.
On Penn's road trips this past season, they wore t-shirts with a panoramic drawing of the arena's interior to try to carry that luck with them.
This fall, the Terriers will christen a brand new 7,000-seat hockey and basketball facility as part of a $225 million "Student Village" on the BU campus.
While the Agganis Arena will have all the fancy architecture and luxury amenities that you would expect, I doubt it will have the charm and I am sure it won't have the history of the Palestra.
So now it falls to Athletic Director Steve Bilsky to find a new coach.
As July is the peak of the high school recruiting season, it will be particularly hard to hire someone from the college ranks.
Many coaches spend this part of the summer traveling the country instead of sitting at their desks.
The calendar does not do the Athletic Department's search committee any favors either.
There are six weeks between now and the start of the academic year, and although that may seem like a long time, it will be August before we know it.
Nonetheless, it would be fair to expect things to be settled when the student body returns to campus.
One easy answer would be to promote assistant coach Joe McGeever to the head position. McGeever knows the players better than just about anyone else who could take the job.
He also knows the ins and outs of Ivy League recruiting, which are not always easy for new coaches to learn.
As for candidates from outside the program, Charlotte Sting assistant coach Cheryl Reeve is a possibility.
Reeve and Greenberg were both stars for La Salle and have been close friends for a long time.
Reeve was also an assistant coach at George Washington University when Penn Athletic Director Steve Bilsky held that job with the Colonials.
According to the Sting's front office, as of yesterday no contact had been made between the two parties.
Whether the choice is McGeever, Reeve, or someone else,one thing is certain: he or she will have some tremendous shoes to fill.
Not only was Kelly Greenberg a great coach, but she was a great person as well.
She never lost her cool, whether talking to the referees or the media, and she was equally gracious in victory and defeat.
Boston University wanted a coach who would provide leadership, character, and winning basketball.
They had every reason to make her their first choice, and they got her.
