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Joanne P. McCallie said her eight seasons as the women’s basketball coach at the University of Maine will always be special to her.
“I have totally fond memories. Both of my children [Maddie and Jack] were born in Maine. The people were incredible. And we had a heckuva’ eight-year run. Those kids could play. We played in front of some sellout crowds. It was a neat time. It was fun,” said Brunswick native McCallie from her office in East Lansing, Mich., where she is having fun molding her Spartans into NCAA championship contenders.
The Spartans are currently 6-1 and ranked 12th in the country thanks to an 82-73 overtime win over then-No. 3 Notre Dame last week that snapped the Irish’s 25-game home court winning streak.
The No. 12 ranking is the highest in school history.
The 39-year-old McCallie is in her fifth season at MSU after leaving Maine. Her Spartans returned all five starters off a 2003-2004 team that went 22-9 and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
She is currently sporting a 74-53 record at MSU after guiding Maine to a 167-73 record and six consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances.
“Things have gone by so fast. We had to build from the ground up. We’ve done a lot of work but we have a lot of work still to do,” said McCallie. “It’s kind of a neat thing to be able to build something with a great group of people and to do something that has never been done before. We’re blazing a trail although it a long trail with no end point. We’re always facing challenges.”
She said Maine “prepared me well” for her jump to Michigan State.
“Things were pretty grim when I came to Maine. Having that experience to develop a program at Maine was really, really helpful. It gave me an outline to do the same at Michigan State,” said McCallie. “It was a little bit easier at Maine because when I came to Maine, those kids were eager, ready and already working really hard.
“But they weren’t loving the game. I had to teach them to enjoy the game. When I came to Michigan State, I had to make them play hard. They were comfortable being .500.”
McCallie said she took a “grassroots approach” to recruiting.
The women’s basketball program didn’t have a national reputation, she explained, but the school had won NCAA championships in other sports like men’s basketball and hockey and they had a “beautiful campus” to sell to recruits.
“We worked very hard. We recruited like crazy in Michigan. We signed the very best players from Michigan year in and year out. We also dabbled in Canada and we will recruit anywhere. But it’s easier to start closer to home and build a reputation,” said McCallie.
Her team is putting plenty of people in the seats and said she continues to be motivated by the hardware in the men’s basketball trophy case that she passes on her way to her office complete with video room and patio.
An NCAA title isn’t out of the realm of possibility for her Spartans this season.
“We beat Minnesota [72-69] in Minnesota in front of 14,000 fans on Senior Day last season and you know how far they went [NCAA semifinals],” said McCallie. “Parity is becoming significant and I’m not going to put any limits on our team. We can beat anybody on a given night the key is to become consistent enough to make that run.”
She will lead her Spartans to Hartford for a game with defending three-time NCAA champ UConn on Dec. 29.
She has kept tabs on the Bears since she recruited several of the players. This will be the first season she won’t have any former recruits playing for Maine.
“Sharon [Versyp] has done a great job,” said McCallie whose husband, John, teaches economics at MSU.
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