As Don Flanagan put it, he was just tired of basketball.
So, too, were five freshmen players who pushed the UNM women’s head coach to resign. Flanagan, after 16 seasons of guiding the program to 340 wins, three Mountain West Conference regular-season championships and six conference tournament titles, resigned Monday after just his second losing season.
Flanagan said at a news conference Tuesday at The Pit that he intended to honor the final year of the four-year extension he signed in 2007, but reversed course when five freshmen — Tina Doughty, Erin Boettcher, Morgan Toben, Brianna Taylor and Jasmine Patterson — told him in individual postseason meetings they planned to quit the team.
“They told me over and over that they’re not coming back,” Flanagan said.
The Albuquerque Journal first reported Flanagan’s resignation late Monday afternoon. Flanagan said Tuesday that four were quitting basketball permanently and one planned to transfer and play elsewhere. He didn’t say which player would transfer.
So onward into retirement is where Flanagan is headed.
With Athletics Director Paul Krebs sitting to his left, Flanagan said it was his decision to step down, not anyone else’s, and he talked to his family the last few years about retiring after the 2012 season.
“It was definitely an individual decision,” he said. “…I think at this point after 40 years I can feel pretty comfortable that it was a positive career.”
A positive career, undoubtedly, but arguably with a bittersweet ending.
Flanagan said before spring break he encountered no complications from players or staff. At the end of the season, he said he envisioned one player would transfer because of diminished playing time.
UNM struggled during the season, but made an unforeseen run to the MWC tournament semifinals, largely on Patterson’s back. The immediate future looked bright.
Season-ending injuries to guards Nikki Nelson and Sara Halasz forced Flanagan to rely heavily on the play of his two seniors (Amanda Best and Jessica Kielpinski) and younger players, but that prepared them for the tournament.
The freshmen players, apparently, felt otherwise.
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Flanagan said some freshmen felt pressed into pressured-filled roles. So with seven players leaving — the two seniors who completed their eligibility and the five freshmen — Flanagan said he felt it best to retire. He said it would be difficult to fill six to seven rosters spots in recruiting, and he didn’t want to tell recruits that he was going to retire after the 2011-12 season.
“We felt that there wasn’t going to be a problem with my last year of recruiting,” Flanagan said. “This is because I only needed one or two players. So, when you only need one or two players, it’s not that hard to recruit, and we still would have had 12 players returning. But since all of the freshmen decided they weren’t coming back because the pressure of playing time, it’s a complete reverse of what normally happens.”
Flanagan’s extension would have expired April 2012, and he said the five freshmen didn’t know he had one year left on his deal. His retirement is effective at the end of April.
Effective, to put it mildly, is what Flanagan has been in his time at UNM.
Flanagan made a name for a program that had previously won just 14 games from 1990-94. UNM hired Flanagan April 16, 1995, and had immediate impact.
In his UNM tenure, Flanagan led the program to eight NCAA tournament appearances and one Sweet 16 appearance in 2004.
Flanagan spent 16 years at Eldorado High School in Albuquerque. There, he compiled a 401-13 record, and the Eagles won 14 state championships.
“The reality is that he put us on the map in women’s basketball,” Krebs said. “We all like to think we’re smart and we make great hires, but the hire of Don Flanagan …was an incredible hire.”
