For Kelly Greenberg, the games may change, but the goals remain the same.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s Boggle or basketball,” said Greenberg, the new coach of the Boston University women’s basketball team. “I’m doing it because I want to win, but I want to enjoy myself while I’m doing it.”
Greenberg has been doing both – winning and having fun – throughout her playing and coaching career, and it was her reputation of blending success and enjoyment that brought her to BU. After five years of patrolling the sideline as the women’s basketball coach at the University of Pennsylvania, Greenberg succeeds Margaret McKeon as the commander of the Terrier women’s basketball fleet.
“We are very excited to have her as our new head coach,” said BU Director of Athletics Mike Lynch, who introduced Greenberg on July 7. “I think she’s a great person and I think she’ll do a great job, not only representing women’s basketball, but also the athletic department as a whole.”
Lynch said about 130 people expressed interest in the coaching vacancy when McKeon and BU parted ways at the beginning of the summer. Greenberg, surprisingly, was a finalist for the same position with McKeon in 1999, so Lynch said he contacted Penn to see if the LaSalle University grad (Class of 1989) would come to Boston for another interview.
“At first, I thought I would look into it just to look into it,” Greenberg said. “I didn’t expect to like it this much.”
A meeting with executive director of athletics and men’s hockey coach Jack Parker and a tour through BU’s new Agganis Arena were enough, she said, to seal the deal.
Lynch said the athletic department got the coach it wanted.
“It was a pretty long and arduous process, but I think it’s a great hire,” he said. “I spoke to about 30 people [during the hiring process], and I never got anything but positive responses about her work ethic and her personality.”
For Greenberg, BU’s desire to improve the basketball program was also a significant selling point.
“The level of commitment that this athletic department is making to women’s basketball is very attractive to me,” she said. “[Parker] told me, ‘We want to get to the next level in men’s and women’s basketball.’ To hear that from him, that was really big.”
Greenberg’s accomplishments at Penn seem to prove she can take a program to that next level. With the Quakers, she posted an 84-54 overall record and her teams were 51-19 in Ivy League play.
In her first head coaching job at Penn in 1999, the Quakers recorded their first winning season in eight years. The following season, the team won a school-record 22 games and was a perfect 14-0 in the Ivy League on its way to earning its first-ever NCAA Tournament berth. Greenberg was also named Philly Big 5 Coach of the Year.
Last year, she led Penn to 17 more wins and a second trip to the NCAA Tournament. But more than victories, Greenberg said she enjoys “the camaraderie and rapport you build with the players.”
Greenberg’s successful coaching record is supported by an impressive player profile. After four years of playing basketball and field hockey at Archbishop Wood Catholic High School in Warminster, Pa., Greenberg went to LaSalle on a field hockey scholarship. She was determined, however, to continue her hoops career.
“I’m one of 12 children, and I have five older brothers,” she said, “So I learned to be pretty competitive. I had my mind set that I was going to be a Division-I athlete.”
She walked onto LaSalle’s basketball team as a freshman, but she later found out she only made the team because her older brother was playing on the men’s side.
“When I realized that was solely the reason, it was really a wake-up call for me,” she said. “But in a lot of ways, that year was ultimately when I learned the most about myself.”
Greenberg said, as a freshman, she wouldn’t play “even if the team was down 30.” Dedicated in the off-season, she worked her way into the starting lineup and took off from there.
As the Explorers’ point guard, Greenberg led LaSalle to three straight Big 5 championships and NCAA Tournament appearances. During her senior season, she captained a squad that won 28 games and earned a national ranking. And she did all of this while still playing field hockey.
“It was just a lot of hard work,” she said. “I just love the competition.”
Greenberg the player and Greenberg the coach aren’t that different. The coach said she likes to work her players in practice by making them compete against each other as much as possible.
“When we do it, we have to beat someone,” she said. “That’s really how I drive any team I coach.”
When her teams face real opponents, she said she prefers to attack rather than react.
“I like to coach up-tempo teams that do it on the defensive end as well,” said Greenberg, who joked that her Penn teams never had a shot-clock violation. “We kind of just come at you. I don’t like to sit back and let things happen.”
Eight players, including starters Becky Bonner and Adrienne Norris, from last year’s 19-11 team that advanced to its second straight America East title game are waiting for Greenberg’s competitive practices and uptempo style.
“We’re very anxious to get started,” Greenberg said. “Practices and workouts can’t happen soon enough.”
Lynch shared the coach’s excitement. “I think she has a solid group of women on the team this year,” he said. “I think we can continue to win championships with her as our coach.”
She didn’t talk about championships, but the first-year coach did lay down a few benchmarks for her new squad.
“We just have to really work hard and get to know each other,” she said. “If we can do that, we’ll have already had a successful season.”
But for the competitive Greenberg, a few wins wouldn’t hurt.
