UMSL names new women's basketball coach

The UM-St. Louis athletic department announced May 8 that Lisa Curliss-Taylor would take over as head coach for the women's basketball team.

The search for the new coach began soon after former head coach Lee Buchanan resigned in February.

Curliss-Taylor was interviewed a week before being hired by most of the athletic department including the basketball team. Todd Addington, director of sports information, noted that the assistant athletic directors Beth Goetz and Rick Gyllenborg headed the search for a new coach.

The search process was standard with guidelines from human resources.

"The position was posted on multiple Web sites including on the NCAA site. Applicants turned in resumes. Then Goetz and Gyllenborg narrowed them down to four," Addington said.

Addington did not comment on who the other applicants were.

Lisa Curliss-Taylor will be leaving behind a four-year career as head coach at East Texas Baptist University, an NCAA Division III school in Marshall, Texas, where she had a 57-48 record.

"Coaching at ETBU has been good," Curliss-Taylor said. "I had a great team and they worked hard, but I'm ready to leave." Taylor will be moving to St. Louis by the end of the month.

Curliss-Taylor plans to have the women's team practice differently and to recruit more St. Louis players. Currently, there are no players from the St. Louis area on the team.

"My style of practicing is more of a full court pressing basketball," she said, "I know the girls have practiced differently in the past."

Curliss-Taylor also has hopes of creating more interest in UM-St. Louis sports. "Hopefully we'll be able to get a lot more fan support and a little more notice from students."

Curliss-Taylor was the assistant women's basketball coach at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas before moving to East Texas Baptist. She played college basketball at Oral Roberts University before transferring to Oklahoma University where she graduated with a degree in broadcast journalism and electronic media.

"I was going to do the ESPN thing, but I went with the coaching. I couldn't be away from basketball," she said, "but coaching and my major sort of go together."

Curliss-Taylor will become the 10th women's basketball head coach at UM-St. Louis, taking over for interim coach Sheila Hering, who replaced Buchanan. Hering previously said she had no interest in becoming head coach.

According to Lori Flanagan, interim athletics director, four other coaches were interviewed: two men and two women.

"Gender had absolutely nothing to do with the hiring process," Flanagan said. "You'll find that in women's basketball, there are both men and women coaches."

In April, former head coach Lee Buchanan was selected as head women's basketball coach at Pfeiffer University, an NCAA Division II school in Misenheimer, North Carolina.