Carpe Diem, Ballers!
Interim head coach Kelley Rae Finley and the lady Gator basketball team plan to turn their team’s recent chaos into victories.
Finley (left), who joined the Gators coaching staff in 2017, says the challenges she faced in her own college career have made her a better coach today.
You and I see it as a difficult situation, maybe even a lose-lose.
Kelly Rae Finley sees it differently.
She sees what Herb Brooks did that day in the USA hockey locker-room when he said, “Great moments are born from great opportunities.”
“We have an opportunity,” Finley said.
It’s a mighty hill to climb in SEC women’s basketball, a job made more difficult by the chaos that hit the program in July. Cam Newbauer stepped down as head coach and Finley was inserted as the interim.
“When the opportunity presented itself, it was a no brainer,” Finley said.
It wasn’t a difficult choice for Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin. Because it was so close to the start of the school year, Stricklin decided to elevate Finley to the role of head coach.
“It was the best thing for our current team,” he said. “We’ll have a large pool when we look to make the hire (after this season), but Kelly will be part of it. She’ll do a nice job as interim coach.”
Of course, Florida women’s basketball has been an Achilles’ heel to the otherwise world-class University Athletic Association resume. Since Carol Ross left in 2002, the Gators have had 13 seasons with under .500 records in the rugged SEC. Newbauer was 15-47.
Finley shrugs off stats like that like a dandelion on her shoulder.
Last season, Kelly Rae Finley helped the women’s basketball team secure their first postseason victory since 2014 when UF defeated Charlotte in the opening round of the WNIT. Photo Courtesy of UF Athletic Association“I’m healthy, I’m happy,” she said. “There are people with real problems. I don’t have any real problems.”
She knows about real problems because her sister Brooke has Rett Syndrome, which causes the loss of the use of one’s hands, as well as other problems. Real problems.
“All you are is what your experiences are,” Finley said.
And those experiences include a broken leg in college at Northwestern that didn’t heal properly and limited minutes she would play after transferring to Colorado State.
“I’m 100% confident that I’m a better coach today because of the adversity I went through in college,” Finley said.
Funny story on how she became a coach. You would think it would be the expected line since her father was a legendary high school coach in Minnesota. The two formed a special bond and she fell in love with the game. But after college, she was looking for something else.
“I didn’t want to be a coach,” she said.
While visiting her brother, a hockey player at Harvard, she asked to watch the women’s team practice. The head coach asked her, “How did you know about the position?”
Finley had no idea there was an opening for a volunteer assistant at Harvard, but after a talk with her dad, she took the job. A year later, the recruiting coordinator left and Finley was a real live coach.
After stops at Arizona and Colorado, she joined Newbauer’s new staff at Florida five years ago.
Her 15th year as a coach is not going to be an easy one.
“I’m a big believer in mindset,” Finley said. “You can only control what you can control.
“We have a special group of people, trainers and players and support staff. We all made a choice to be in this together. The thing that controls us all is our hearts.”
Published
September 23, 2021
When Athletics Director Scott Stricklin named Finley interim head coach, star player Lavender Briggs, who had entered the transfer portal, changed her plans and stayed at UF.
The good news for this Florida women’s basketball team is that Lavender Briggs, who entered the transfer portal, decided to come back when Finley was named interim coach. Briggs was second-team All-SEC and averaged 19.4 points a game.
Had Florida made a hasty hire, the whole thing might have blown up. The portal could well have been overrun by Gators.
Which goes back to what Stricklin was saying about the timing and doing what was best for this season. That’s something people forget when a coach is let go – there are players on the team, especially seniors, who deserve something better than a hire for the sake of making a hire.
Instead, they have a coach who already has three games under her belt from last year when Newbauer had COVID issues. She went 1-2 in those games, three close games, and looked the part of a head coach.
Now, she gets a chance to really show something, whether it’s Scott Stricklin watching or other ADs around the country.
She knows it. But there is a genuine commitment in her words to make you understand that she can deal with pressure as if it were no big deal.
“I only know one way to be,” she said, “And that’s me.” 
