Transcript: Introductory Press Conference of Head Women's Basketball Coach Kayla Ard

Utah State Vice President and Director of Athletics John Hartwell conducted a live interactive stream Tuesday to formally introduce new head women's basketball coach Kayla Ard. Questions were submitted via Facebook and Twitter throughout the stream.

Vice President and Director of Athletics John Hartwell:
"What an exciting day for Utah State athletics and, specifically, Utah State women's basketball with the official introduction of Kayla Ard as our head women's basketball coach. I will be happy to talk a little bit about the process. Jerry Finkbeiner, who did a tremendous job here as the head coach, when he announced right before our regular season play began back in the fall and we named Ben, his son, as our interim head coach. I can't say enough good things about Ben and their staff and wish them all the best. We, at that time, were able to kind of start our process, although not publicly. With Jerry Bovee and Amy Crosbie, who are the two who worked closest with me in this process, some of the things that we were looking for: high-energy, relentless recruiter, tireless work ethic, player development was really important as well. As we started going through the candidates, we had tremendous interest in this job. 

"I'd be remiss if I didn't recognize both Jeff Schemmell and Dan Walters who helped in this search process from a search firm standpoint. We had tremendous interest. It was, again, a little unconventional in the manner in which we conducted the interviews, our initial interviews of which we interviewed eight candidates. Some were in-person, some of those in-person ones were changed to virtual interviews because of the effects of coronavirus. Then we narrowed the field, and throughout our process, Kayla Ard not only checked all of the boxes of the qualities that we were looking for, but she emerged as somebody who not only fulfilled all of those things that we were looking for, but also will be a tremendous fit for Utah State women's basketball, for our great university and for Cache Valley. I am extremely thrilled to introduce Kayla Ard as our new women's coach."

Head Women's Basketball Coach Kayla Ard
"I am so excited to be here. There are not enough words for me to put out there to say how excited I am and how grateful I feel to be here. This is a dream come true for me. I have thought about this day since I was a little girl. I feel so blessed, especially with everything going on in the world right now with the coronavirus and travel and all that stuff that is out there today, I just feel so blessed to be here and to have been chosen for this position. This is an extraordinary job. It's an excellent opportunity for me as a first-time head coach. I'm so excited. There are so many people along this journey that I need to thank, obviously, and I'm sure I'm going to miss some. President (Noelle E.) Cockett, as soon as I got on campus I got to meet with her, and she was amazing. She made me feel so at ease. That told me something about the leadership right away, that it starts from the top and works its way down. She is amazing. I can't wait to work with her and work alongside her and get her guidance. John Hartwell, his wife and their kids, Heather, Madison and Lauren, they've been so welcoming to me and so amazing and I cannot thank them enough. I love his leadership and I can't wait to work for him and learn from him. I know he really gets it as an AD, so that is so important to me. So, I love the support coming from there. Amy (Crosbie), Jerry (Bovee), the whole administration, they have been so amazing. Again, I'd like to second what John said. Jeff (Schemmell) and Dan (Walters) in the search committee, they were so great. They really guided me through this and gave me some great feedback. I'm just so grateful for all of those people. Obviously, my mother has really taught me to be a strong, independent woman. She was a single mom and raised me and my brother. I'm so grateful for her. My brother, he taught me how to never back down, never give up, don't back down from anything. That's really paid dividends for me in my career. It's like there's no mountain too high for me to climb, and he's really taught me how to do that. I'm so grateful for him. 

"My opportunity at Denver was so amazing. The reason that was so amazing for me and great for me as a coach was because the head coach there, Jim Turgeon. He gave me an opportunity there to be the associate head coach. He gave me the opportunity to really step into a head coaching role as far as running things in practice and in games. Without that experience, I wouldn't be sitting here. I am so grateful for him. Chanda Rigby, she is the head coach at Troy, she has been my mentor my whole career. There is no way I would be here without that lady. She is more than a mentor, she is more than a coach, she is a friend. She taught me a very long time ago at the junior college level what it meant to care about your student-athletes, care about your players and be more than just a coach for them. She got me into this business. I would not be here without her. I know she's watching right now, so I want to tell her thank you. She's a very important person to me in my life. This is what this job means to me. It is truly a dream come true. It is an emotional time for me. I'm not sure if it's really sank in yet, but when I sit here and talk about it, it's really happening. 

"My family back home, thank you so much. My aunts and uncles who have taught me so much. I have uncles that have coached me in basketball, I have another that's a head coach in track. To have another person in my family to bounce sports ideas off of, even though it is a different sport, is really fun and cool. My aunts and my cousins, we're so close and I love them so much. They're more like sisters to me than aunts and cousins. All of those people are just so, so important to me. The players that I've coached in the past, I want to say thank you to every single one of them. I would not be here without them. Whether it is the greatest experience I've had with a player or a hard experience I've had with a player, they helped me grow as a coach and helped me learn and taught me so much. I've learned so much from them, especially the players I had at Denver. They're really special. I'm going to miss those guys. 

"I cannot be more happy to be here. It's truly been just a whirlwind. I'm so happy just to be here. Everything in my career has just come full circle for me. I would not be here without my faith and without God. He has really guided me to get to this point. It's amazing to watch it all come full circle. I started this journey 10 years ago, and now here I am as a head coach. I am so ready. I hope the fans here are ready. I've felt so much support from them, from other coaches in this business just reaching out. The support already in the past 24 hours has been unbelievable. It means so much to me. I had fans reaching out to me on Twitter and social media already. That's so amazing. I know this is a great place. I know there are people here that want to support basketball. I see it at the men's games. I'm here to give you guys something to cheer for. I can't wait to get started. It's so exciting. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you for John and his administration for trusting me and putting this program in my hands. I'm going to do everything I can do to give you guys something to cheer for."

On her goals for the program:
"I've actually been talking to the players yesterday and I got to talk with a few more of them today. They've asked me that a few times. We're talking about that. I'm realistic, but on the same token I want to set high goals. I want to set high goals that we can reach and manage. My goal in our first year is to finish in the top half of the conference. I want to make a big jump and finish in the top half of the Mountain West Conference. That can be done here. The resources here are so beautiful. The facilities, the support, the town itself, the community of Logan, it's here. And the players that I've talked to so far, they're excited. They're excited and they're passionate and they want to be here. That's my goal to get into the top half of the conference. I would love to double the wins that they had last year, so that would get us up to 16 wins in my first season. Those are my goals for the first season. 

"Anything past that would be icing on the cake. But ultimately, my goals here are to win championships. I want to cut down the nets. I want to do that. It can be done here. Craig Smith has done it with his staff. I got to sit down and talk with him. I've met that whole staff. Those guys are unbelievable. I can't wait to learn from them, work alongside them and be in the same office as them. They've been incredible already and I've only been here about 24 hours. It can be done here, they've led the way. They've paved the road. Now, it's women's basketball's time to jump on board and do the same thing. Ultimately, here, we want to cut those nets down."

On where her high energy comes from and how it translates to the floor as a coach:
"Someone told me that I'm like the female version of Craig Smith. This guy (John Hartwell). For me, that's a huge compliment. I come in and I'm like, wow, that's a compliment. He seems great. I could see his energy level as soon as I met him. I hear that a lot. I think that comes from sheer passion. I'm so passionate about the game. I'm so thankful to the game. This game changed my life. Basketball changed my life. Where I'm from, a lot of people stay there. A lot of people don't get out. Basketball gave me an avenue to do something very different with my life and very special. Like I said, Chanda Rigby was a mentor to me. She did that to me and I'm all about paying it forward. I relate to her and say she saved my life. She did, because look at the life I've created from the avenue she helped me find. For me, that energy is passion. It's sheer passion and gratefulness and I really want to pay it forward and give everything I have to this game because it has given me so much in life. This is how I am in practice. This is how I am in the games. This is how I am with the fans. This is how I am when I'm in the grocery store. This is how I am. If you guys see me out there, this is how I'm going to be. If you see me at the game, this is how I'm going to be. Although if something goes wrong in the game, I might have a different facial expression. I don't know if I'll have a smile on my face. My energy level stays about right here. When it comes to basketball, it stays right here. I'm definitely passionate about it."

On what can be expected offensively:
"This is my favorite thing to talk about. This and recruiting are my favorite things to talk about. I'm a very, very offensive-minded coach. At Denver, we finished 19th in the country in scoring. Before that we were 11th in the country in scoring. Jim Turgeon really let me lead that offense. It was amazing for me. I picked up a lot of the offense that we run from Dayton from my time at Dayton under Jim Jabir and Shauna Green. It's fast. It's fast. It's structured, so it's not street ball, but it's run and gun if you will, structured system off makes and misses. We're going to get out and push the ball. It's exciting. The fans love it, the players love it. Everything is predicated on where the ball goes, where the players are on the floor. It is not a pull the ball out and run set one, two, three. It's not that at all. There are situations for that if there's a dead ball or a mismatch or something like that. We need a three or we need to go into our post or whatever. There's situations for that. But, about 90 percent of the offense is very fast-paced. I want to score in under 12 seconds which gives us more possessions, obviously, helps the scoring go up. It's very different. 

"It's very different from what you guys have had here before. I really think it can be beneficial in the Mountain West. I've had the privilege to coach against several teams in the conference already, and it's worked. I know it will work here. It gives the players something to be excited about. They want to do that. In today's day and age in basketball, the kids want to run. They all want to run. You have to kind of force them to play defense. They want to play offense. We're going to push the pace. We're going to score a lot of points a lot like Craig Smith does on the men's side. We actually had this conversation the other day. You said I'm a lot like him with the energy, but my system is a lot like him, too. The fans will love it. They will really love it, so I can't wait to get them out here and show them."

On how involved in the recruiting process she will be moving forward:
"In the past, I've been the recruiting coordinator or the assistant coach. Where you lead that kind of thing as the head coach, you have to delegate that to somebody. However, I will be extremely involved in recruiting. The biggest thing about recruiting is, obviously, yes, you see the talent, but you have to take the time and put in the work, the energy and the effort to get to know your recruits, get to know their family, where they come from, how were they raised. That type of stuff. What is their background? What was their high school culture like? What was their club team culture like? Those things are so important. That's me. I have to put the time in to do that. Of course, with the staff as well, but I have a very different outlook on recruiting. I don't say this is your player, this is your player, this is your player go recruit them. This is our player. This is Utah State's player. This is Utah State's recruit. I'm going to be very hands-on with it. I'll put in the time, put in the work. When you're taking over a program, you can't make a mistake there. You cannot make a mistake and bring in a player that's going to disrupt the team chemistry that you already have or disrupt the culture that you're trying to create. It's very, very important. It's the most important factor of changing a program and turning a program around. Yes, recruiting has kind of been my thing. I love it. I'm passionate about it. I'm going to be hands on there with it and work really closely with the staff. We're going to get some great players here. We're going to get some really great players here I have no doubt."

On if it's an advantage or a disadvantage to be a young head coach:
"I definitely think it's an advantage. Age-wise, yes, I'm a young head coach, but that's where my energy comes from, my passion, my hunger. I'm on fire for it. I'm hungry to prove myself. I feel like this program has something to prove and I have something to prove. That is very, very good. That's a good thing. The girls will really enjoy that. I am young in age, but I've been doing this for 10 years at the college level. I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of different programs, a lot of different coaches and philosophies so I've gotten to pick and choose who I wanted to be as a head coach. I took these from my days at Pensacola State when I was at the junior college level. I took this from days at Troy when I was in the Sun Belt. Then we go to the ACC and you're coaching against some of the best minds in the country. You've got Muffet McGraw, Jeff Walz, like those guys just doing scouting reports alone on those teams, obviously, I took a ton of stuff from there. Then going to Dayton, the elite eight team came from there. Some of the greatest coaches. I had two different coaches at Dayton I worked under and they were different. I got to pull stuff from a lot of people. And then a lot of assistant coaches that I've worked from, too. You can learn from anybody, it doesn't have to be a head coach. I've worked with an assistant coach at Dayton who had been in the WNBA for like 10 years and his X's and O's, his mind work was incredible. I remember hours and hours in his office. His name was Jeff House. We would just sit in his office and he would literally teach me how to see the game. How to understand the X's and O's. It's an advantage. Like I said, I am young in age, but I've been doing this for 10 years and I've worked my way up and my journey's been really fun and really involved and I've gotten to learn a ton. It is an advantage, and I am ready. I have no doubt about that."

On what she looks for when recruiting:
"A lot of people say, 'Well, in this position I look for this' and 'In this position I look for this.' I would say I'm pretty much across the board. I like high-IQ players that can really think the game. The system that we run offensively is predicated on read and react. What did the defense do? Where did your player go? Where did the ball go? You have to be able to read and react to those things. I really like athletic players. Long players that have some size on the perimeter. You need that in the Mountain West. But above all, I want good people from good families that want to be here, that are 100 percent bought-in, that can see the vision and that will just play hard. I want kids that will play hard, so the first thing I notice when I go to a gym, I can see somebody doing all of these and-1 moves or jumping up there and dunking it or whatever, but if there's a kid that's diving after every loose ball, going after every rebound, helping her teammate up. I want players that play really, really hard that are good teammates and good people. That makes for a much funner atmosphere for me as the coach, for the team and it's better for the fans. The fans want to watch kids that just want to play hard that you can tell when you're watching them that they love the game of basketball. Those would be the characteristics that I look for. There's a lot of players here already that are like that. I haven't gotten the opportunity to get to know all of them on the level that I want to yet, but the ones I have talked to, they're excited. They seem to fit that. Some of that's already here, and some of that we'll have to recruit to. I would say that would be the mold for what I look for."

On how she's handling the situation with players with everything that's going on right now:
"It's very unorthodox. It's very different. Honestly, I'm just grateful to be here right now, to be sitting here and be able to do this with you guys because things are really tough out there right now with so much going on with the world and with the virus. It's just so much right now. It's kind of hard to really focus in on what you need to be focused in on right now stepping into this role because there are so many people out there that are concerned about the world and what's going on. Right now, it's been phone calls but you've got to think outside of the box or think as if there is no box, and I tend to do that when it comes to a lot of things: recruiting, stuff I do in practice, style of play, that kind of stuff. Right now, it's phone calls, but there's so much stuff. You can get on FaceTime, there's video conference like Zoom where you can literally have everyone's face on your screen at one time so that would be like our first team meeting. There's stuff out there like that. There's some kids that are local and I'm trying to talk with them to see if we could meet, but at the same token, I don't want too many people in a room at one time. There are ways to do it, you just have to be creative. You have to think outside the box. I'm going to email the players some video from the system, that way they can get excited about that even though it's not their team, but they can see the way we play and are going to play. You can send them the playbook. You can give them stuff like that to look at. There's ways to do it, but you have to be creative. You have to be patient, too, and understand everybody is doing everything they can do. 

"I know the athletic department is excited to get back to work and everybody's waiting for this to go away, to die down and get better so that everybody could get back to work. You have to be patient and let it work itself out because the main thing right now is safety. You have to keep everybody safe and that's what is most important. We can do it. We can get through it. If anything, this will serve as a way for me to recruit the players that are here. This is how I would start recruiting players is on the phone and talking to them, so the players that are here right now it's almost as if I'm going through the recruiting process with them. I'm getting to know them from the beginning. It's a cup half full or a cup half empty. I'm choosing to look at it cup half full and I'm going to use it as a time to really get to know them and develop my relationship with the current players here. The same thing with incoming recruits. Use it as a time and get to know your players."

On what can be expected defensively:
"I know how important defense is. The role I had to step into at Denver forced me to coach on both sides of the ball. I came to find out the staff started picking on me because our practices seemed to have a lot of defense in them when I was planning practice and there were like, 'I thought practices would be all offense.' And my players were like, 'Coach, I thought we'd be doing all offense. Why are we doing all of this defensive stuff?' It's very different stepping into that head coaching role because you say you're all offense and then you step into the head coaching role and are like, 'Oh, well, we have to guard. We have to guard people.' I know how important it is. 

"The way I structure my practices is to work on both sides of the ball. I told a lot of the players every single thing we do in practice is going to be a competition. Everything. Every drill. If it's a five-minute drill, if it's a 30-minute drill, there will be a winner and there will be a loser. It will be a competition so we can develop the culture in practice of being winners and competing in every single thing that we do. That's on both sides of the ball. I have to get them out here and really look at them. I've watched a ton of film. I can't say in the first year we're going to be pressing. But, to really get into the X's and O's, half court man-to-man. We're going to ball pressure on the ball. Depending on the opponent we may be in the gaps, we may be in deny. It just kind of depends. We may have a little issue with size down in the post, so there are ways to get around that. We can front the post. We can make sure we're in help-side and really work on those things. There's ways to get around it and you really have to be creative. It'll depend on who we're playing and the scout for that particular game, but we're going to do different things on ball screens whether it's a hedge or a shell low or a trap, or maybe we ice the ball screen so they can't come off it. There's different things that we're going to do. I am very aware of how important defense is, and we're definitely going to be coaching that here, but it will mostly be man-to-man. We'll throw in a zone here just to keep opponents on their toes. We're going to coach that side of the ball I promise you."

On what she's heard about Aggie Ice Cream:
"I've had numerous people call me about that. Kelly Graves called me yesterday, the head coach at Oregon, and he just started going off about the ice cream place. First he said congrats and he was so proud of me and all of that stuff, then it was all about the ice cream. He couldn't wait to talk about it. He said I had to go try it which I don't know if I can do right now. It's probably closed. But yes, I have heard about that. It's a legend here. I can't wait. I'm going to disappoint a lot of people, but I'm kind of boring when it comes to the ice cream. I'm kind of just a plain old chocolate girl. But, I'm open to try."

On her team philosophy:
"My team philosophy, this is where it comes into play me being a young head coach. I am very close to my players. I don't cross the line, it's appropriate. They know when we step into these lines right here, it's respect, we're going to work hard, we're going to work together, but I'm very close to my players. I develop great relationships with them. They need a push, I'm going to push them. They need a hug, I'm going to hug them. I tell my kids I love them and I do. I care about them. If they're sick, I'm going to be there. If they're going through something personally, I'm going to be there. I'm very hands-on with my players and that's why the product on the floor, in my opinion, turns out to be good because they know I love them. I've earned their respect. They've earned mine in return. We just have that kind of relationship. There were times I'd bring Nikki (Dixon) into my office and would say, 'What are you seeing out there? What are you thinking? How's it going? You tell me what you think might would work.' And other players. At Denver, our seniors this year I would call a timeout and would say, 'You tell me. Should we be doing this or doing that? Do you want to play zone or do you want to play man? What's working out there?' 

"I'm very big into something that makes a great head coach is if you can be vulnerable enough and confident enough in your relationship in your players to have the kind of relationship where you can ask their opinion and you are big enough to listen, you get better immediately just like that. I'm very close to my players. I want a great relationship with them. And the same thing with my staff. Those kids are going to be my family and the staff is going to be my family. That's not a thing that we're going to say, that's a thing that we're going to do. That's how we run things. I'm the same way in the athletic department. With Craig and those guys, it's going to be the same thing and I told them that. I was like, 'Hey, y'all are going to be my friends.' It's just me and my dog, Sebastian, so I need friends. I need family. And that's who the athletic department is for me. This is family to me. It's going to be family. I'm that way with my players, the athletic department and the staff."