McCallie excited to fulfill lifelong dream at Duke

DURHAM, N.C. – Joanne P. McCallie first fell in love with Duke when she arrived on campus for a recruiting visit, even though her mother ultimately persuaded her to play for Northwestern.

Still, she couldn’t help but dream about one day coaching the Blue Devils. And now, 25 years later, “Coach P” finally has made it to Durham.

“I wanted that job,” the former Michigan State coach said Friday at her introductory news conference in Cameron Indoor Stadium. “Duke did not have to come searching for me and asking too many questions. I believe I made it very clear that I wanted the job.”

The Blue Devils hired McCallie away from the Spartans this week, charging the 41-year-old coach with maintaining the tradition built by Gail Goestenkors before she left for Texas earlier this month. McCallie – who was named The Associated Press national coach of the year in 2005 after leading the Spartans to the national championship game – inherits a program that has won 30 games for an NCAA-record seven straight seasons, with three Final Four trips in that span.

Goestenkors accomplished just about everything she could at Duke except win a national championship. That burden now falls on McCallie.

“She is a coach with tremendous enthusiasm, tremendous passion for basketball and she’s going to lead this program to new heights,” athletic director Joe Alleva said. “And we’re going to hang a lot more banners in this gymnasium in the future.”

McCallie – known as “Coach P” because of her maiden name, Palombo – has a career record of 316-148 in 15 seasons at Maine and Michigan State. She leaves Michigan State after going 149-75 in seven seasons there. Her teams reached the past five NCAA tournaments, losing in the second round this season to eventual national finalist Rutgers.

She also will coach the U.S. under-21 team at the world championships in Moscow in June and July.

McCallie left the Spartans less than a month after signing a new contract that boosted her base salary by about $100,000. She said the Duke job was the only one that would have been enough to pry her away from East Lansing, Mich.

That didn’t seem a likely scenario when Duke first focused on California’s Joanne Boyle, a former assistant to Goestenkors from 1993-2002. But Boyle turned down the job last week, and it wasn’t long before Duke and McCallie were talking. That included McCallie spending about 45 minutes meeting with Hall of Fame men’s coach Mike Krzyzewski earlier this week.

“The reality was there was an opening I never thought would occur,” she said. “It’s taken 15 years for the job to open. It was something I had to seize as somebody with an appreciation and an excitement for Duke University.”