SPORTS

BY NICK CAMINO

Tony McAndrews has certainly been around in the coaching world.

With 30 years of coaching experience under his belt, McAndrews is more than ready to assist head coach Kate Peterson Abiad and the Vikings who are coming off yet another strong season after going 19-14 before falling in the semifinals of the 2009 Horizon League Tournament.

“I am excited about working with Kate, and meeting the players and the rest of the staff,” McAndrews said recently in a phone interview from his office at the Wolstein Center. “The whole situation is just so exciting.”

McAndrews, who began his coaching career with head coach Lute Olson at Iowa in 1976, has never coached a women’s team before. He was the head coach at Colorado State from 1981-1987 before rejoining Olson at Arizona for five seasons.

“Right now the women’s game is much more fundamental than the men’s game in the college basketball world,” McAndrews explained. “This is my first actual coaching job with a women’s program, but I have coached girls and women at different camps before, so I am familiar with coaching women.”

McAndrews joins the Vikings after serving as the boys head coach at Pope John Paul II High School in Boca Raton, Fla. Prior to that job, he served as an assistant coach at Georgia Southern, Nova Southeastern and Florida Atlantic.

Coaching at different levels at a number of programs for as long as he has makes McAndrews a valuable piece to the Vikings program, Peterson Abiad said in a recent press release.

“Tony is an extremely hard worker and has a unique perspective of the game that will translate well into our program,” Peterson Abiad explained. “Our staff and student-athletes will benefit from Tony on the bench, and I look forward to working with him as we continue to build this program.”

The recent success of the team, which qualified for the NCAA Tournament two years ago, followed by a 19-13 record this past season shows that the program is headed in the right direction, McAndrews said.

“Next year we have four starters back from a team that did well last season,” McAndrews said. “Now, hopefully the incoming freshmen will be around to get comfortable with everything that goes with playing at this level. I hope to help take this program to the next level.”

CSU returns Horizon League Co-Player of the Year Kailey Klein and Horizon League Co-Defensive Player of the Year Shawnita Garland. The Vikings have a combined 38-27 record over the past two seasons.