Ginny 8: University of Richmond and Women's Basketball

I'm not a big sports fan (unless my kids are involved.) I grew up in New York and went to a state school; I really wasn't familiar with schools outside of New York unless they had popular notoriety.  I went to a college that didn't have a football team and only went to less than a handful of sporting events in my four years there. I had never heard of University of Richmond until I moved here. Local college sports meant nothing to me.

While Ginny wasn't boastful, she was passionate and taught me so much about the University of Richmond, women's basketball, and coaching careers.

Ginny played for University of Richmond women's basketball. It was neat to see her face on team photos throughout the lobby of the Robins Center. As I remember it, she had planned to go on and play overseas professionally but an injury sidetracked her plans and after a few stints assistant coaching at other schools and getting her masters degree she ended up back at University of Richmond as an assistant coach. As much as she wanted to move on and be a head coach, I am so glad she remained at University of Richmond until the end; they are doing a wonderful job honoring her.

As we learned from Ginny, coaching staff usually leave when the head coach leaves their post, but Ginny's relationship with University of Richmond women's basketball was unique and she stuck around through several head coaches and eventually became the Associate Head Coach.

Ginny shared some tales of her time on the court for UR, but she didn't tell us before our first visit to Robins Center that her picture was INSIDE the Robins Center! The school has a mural around the interior perimeter of the Robins Center of school sports legends and there she was with Billy Packer. The girl was a legend, but came across as "just" our neighbor who happened to work for the University. Here is what the mural looked like pre-renovation; this isn't Ginny's picture but you see how big these images were..

Before I met Ginny, I figured coaching was seasonal, fun because you pretty much played all the time, and low stress. Ha! Ginny was probably on the road recruiting more than for away games. And there were countless rules on when she could recruit, how she could recruit, and who she could recruit! She was gone recruiting all but one week every July and throughout the year, she went to tournaments which started at the crack of dawn and dragged on into the late night. She went to recruit's AAU and school games, visited with their families, and welcomed them onto the University of Richmond campus.

Ginny never seemed to stop working. She'd get in very late at night from recruiting and be gone early the next morning for a team meeting. If she was home, she was usually in her office watching game tape. She scouted games. She would watch numerous tapes of upcoming competitors and would watch them repeatedly. I've come to appreciate the comment "it's a coach's game" through Ginny.

Ginny encouraged us to come to as many UR women's basketball games as possible, donned us with UR basketball sweatshirts every year, and told us all about the recent renovations at the Robins Center. And then she took the dogs to check it out...

Many people have said that Ginny bled blue & red; she was definitely a Spider through and through. She had such pride for the University she played for and then worked for. You could feel the energy when she was headed to campus to take a recruit on a tour. And I have no doubt that excitement showed in all of her discussion of University of Richmond.

Thanks to Ginny Doyle, we will always have a special place in our thoughts & hearts for University of Richmond, women's basketball, and the Robins Center.