STARKVILLE — Having traded his maroon and white for burnt orange, Vic Schaefer was officially introduced as the new head women’s basketball coach at Texas Monday.
Sitting down with the Longhorn Network, Schaefer was questioned on his departure from Mississippi State, why he ended up at Texas and his vision for the sustained success of the women’s basketball program in Austin.
“I also want to take this time to thank Mississippi State,” he said in his opening remarks. “To thank Dr. Mark Keenum, Scott Stricklin — who hired me eight years ago, my former (athletic director) — and current athletic director John Cohen for this opportunity here.
To our fanbase — the Bulldog family — for their love of my family, my staff out program, my players here at Mississippi State. This has been a great eight years and it has been a tremendous state. So many wonderful people, the state of Mississippi has just been tremendous for us.”
Speaking with The Longhorn Network’s Lowell Galindo, Texas Athletic Director Chris Del Conte also provided insight into the timeline of Schaefer’s hiring.
Following the decision to not renew since-departed head coach Karen Aston’s contract, Del Conte spoke with famed Texas women’s basketball coach Jody Conradt, among others, regarding the open position.
Conradt, who led the Longhorns to a national championship in 1986 and compiled a 900-306 record over her 38-year coaching career, suggested Del Conte look to northeast Mississippi for Texas’ next head coach.
“I gave her what I was going to do and she said, ‘You know what you need to do? Go to Mississippi State and get Vic Schaefer.'” Del Conte recounted.
Following a day’s worth of conversation and a contract discussion Saturday, Schaefer and Del Conte shook on a deal.
“When we say that ‘The winning traditions of the University of Texas are not trusted to the timid nor the weak,’ he’s not weak,” Del Conte said. “He understands it and I knew when he started talking about our program and the entire history I was just trying not to get too excited.”‘
For Schaefer, the draws to Texas were natural. A former Texas A&M assistant coach, he spent a decade in College Station under Gary Blair — helping the Aggies to the 2011 national championship.
The Houston native also spent eight years as the head coach at Sam Houston State in Huntsville, Texas before he left for an assistant coaching job at Arkansas.
“I am 65 miles from where both my mother and father are buried,” he said, referencing Austin. “It’s a town of La Grange,Texas where I grew up as a young child on weekends at my grandmother’s house. I’m two-and-a-half hours from my sister — who was actually my kindergarten teacher and my spelling teacher from the first through the eighth grade — and it’s a state that’s tremendous in women’s and girls high school basketball.”
Schaefer also took the time in a teleconference with reporters to address the vacancy he left behind in Starkville. While nothing official has been announced, MSU associate head coach Johnnie Harris — who has spent the past 13 years on staff with Schaefer — has quickly emerged as a candidate to fill the head coaching role.
And though Harris could still follow Schaefer to Austin, she received her former bosses’ blessing to take over a Bulldog roster that was tabbed No. 3 in the country in ESPN’s way-too-early Top 25.
“If Johnnie can be the head coach here at Mississippi State, I’d love that,” Schaefer said Monday. “And there wouldn’t be anyone happier for her or more proud.”
Rounding out his first interview with Texas’ in-house network, Schaefer also offered a new twist on his usual press conference outro.
“Praise the lord and Hook ’em Horns!” he exclaimed.
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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