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Canfield native Starkey hired as Kent State women’s hoops coach
KSU likes local ties, Division I experience
By CHarles grove
kent
It was a happy homecoming for newly appointed Kent State women’s basketball head coach Todd Starkey. The Canfield native became the sixth head coach in program history and was announced to the public Wednesday.
“There’s always something about coming home,” Starkey said. “It’s a pretty neat thing to come back to the area you were raised in and that was definitely a factor in determining my decision.
“There’s other jobs around the country that I probably wouldn’t even consider for one reason or another but the fact that Kent State is in northeastern Ohio played a big part in my decision.”
Starkey was most recently an assistant coach at Indiana, helping guide the Hoosiers to their first NCAA Tournament win since 1983 this past season. Before that he was the head coach at Lenior-Rhyne University in North Carolina, where he posted a 165-95 record in nine seasons. Starkey averaged 20 wins per season during his final six years and won three conference regular season championships.
Starkey called accepting this position “the culmination of 20 years of hard work” and “a real dream come true.” And Starkey isn’t one to forget where he came from, thanking his coaches at Canfield for where he is today.
“I’m a product of a lot of really good coaches and that goes all the way back to seventh grade with coach Laurie Mitchell at Canfield Middle School where I learned all the fundamentals and foundations of the game,” Starkey said.
Starkey’s high school coach as a Cardinal and current South Range head coach John Cullen wasn’t forgotten either.
“I’ve leaned on [Cullen] over the years for insight,” Starkey said. “I got my love of the game from him. Growing up in Youngstown and Canfield made me who I am and I’m excited to get back to the area I was raised.”
The qualities Kent State athletic director Joel Nielsen said he and the school’s administration were looking for included head coaching experience, Division I experience and an understanding of the local recruiting area. Out of about 80 other candidates, Starkey hit the mark the most on all those qualities.
“We wanted someone who could excite our fans in the MAC Center when they come out to watch women’s basketball,” Nielsen said. “Todd’s a winner, he’s a gentleman, he’s a great father and he’s extremely devoted to his students and his job.”
The Golden Flashes stumbled to a 6-23 record this season including a 3-15 mark in Mid-American Conference play and an 0-13 record away from home.
Kent State also averaged just 61.4 points per game, a number Starkey hopes will rise with a more fast-paced offense.
“The things our players are going to hear over and over again are ‘Talk, box and run.’” Starkey said. “We’re going to be a program that communicates well and we’re going to be a team that ends every defensive possession with a box out and we’re going to run to try to score before their defense has a chance to set up.”
The only thing Starkey was even a little bit unsure of was his ceremonial first pitch at the Kent State baseball game before the Golden Flashes took on Penn State.
“I’m going to need to get loosened up a bit,” Starkey said. “I’ll work on it. I’ll be trying to paint the inside corner.”
Starkey replaced Danielle O’Banion, who was 21-98 in four seasons, including 11-59 in the MAC.