SDSU hires two coaches in one week

After a couple months of searching, South Dakota State this week filled both of its vacant head coaching positions. University of Tennessee assistant Casey VanDamme will lead the men's and women's golf teams and Wayne State head coach Krista Wood is taking over softball.

Plus, four non-coaching additions were finalized in recent weeks and announced Wednesday. Although seems like a bunch of hires, it's probably in line with the average for an offseason.

What's different in this case is the timing: SDSU just finished its first decade at the NCAA Division I level and is in the midst of a facilities boom.
"We're getting to the point of trying to be a lot more selective," Jackrabbits athletic director Justin Sell said. "I'm not going to hire just to hire. I want to find a special person that can come in and make us better. These folks are going to make us better as a department."

In his estimation, reputable applicants were more aware of SDSU this time than in the past. He attributed that to recent NCAA tournament berths in football, men's basketball and women's basketball. The name is getting out more than it used to.

Nonetheless, recruiting is vital to getting a quality pool of applicants. Administrators and current coaches worked connections to find names and help sell the school.
"Most of the people that you really really want to talk to aren't the ones that apply," Sell said.

Yet it took some time – especially in the case of softball – to seal the deal.

Both VanDamme and Wood threw their names into the hat relatively recently. The two have very different backgrounds: VanDamme is a first-time head coach at the college level, but has been an assistant at a No. 1-ranked Division I school. It's hard to imagine him being interested in this job even a couple of years ago.

Meanwhile, Wood lacks Division I experience, but has proven herself as a head coach at a school in the region that's isn't overly rich in resources.

Now ... to produce. Golf has done well enough on that front the last few years; softball hasn't, enjoying just one winning season since 1998. Wood is the fifth coach since 2007 – and SDSU took its time in tabbing her, calling off the initial search in the fall and settling for an interim promotion due to an unimpressive initial pool.

Fair or not, her tenure will be an early test of this new hiring narrative.

Terry Vandrovec also posts regular updates on his Twitter page.