STARKVILLE — Holly Schaefer believed.
When you have coached and been around athletics as long as Schaefer, sometimes you just get a feeling. So don’t expect Vic Schaefer’s wife to point to one specific thing that sold her on Mississippi State University, its women’s basketball program, and the city of Starkville four years ago.
Instead, she will give you a number of factors that helped convince her that uprooting her family from College Station, Texas, and coming to Oktibbeha County was the right move.
She started to get a feeling four years ago, while visiting Starkville alone, after Vic had chatted with MSU Director of Athletics Scott Stricklin in Houston.
From making an immediate connection with Scott Stricklin’s wife, Anne, to the community, the university’s campus, and its athletic facilities, Schaefer saw a number of reasons why she, her husband, and her children, Blair and Logan, could be happy at MSU.
During the visit, she stopped for lunch at Oby’s Restaurant and turned her phone on for the first time in several hours. A flurry of missed calls and texts from Vic greeted her: “Hey, how’s it going?” “Where are you?” “What do you think?” “What are you doing?” “How come you haven’t called me?” “Call me.” “Call me.”
Holly called her husband.
“You can win here,” she remembers telling him when he answered. “Let’s do it.”
Reaching new heights
That phone call set in motion a series of events that four years later have helped push the MSU women’s basketball team into the national spotlight.
At 1:30 p.m. Friday (ESPN2), No. 5 seed MSU (26-7) will experience another first when it plays host to No. 12 seed Chattanooga (24-7) in the first round of the NCAA tournament at Humphrey Coliseum.
MSU earned the chance to play host to the first and second rounds because No. 4 seed Michigan State was not able to serve as host because the state girls basketball tournament is being held at its home venue. Michigan State will take on No. 13 seed Belmont at 11 a.m. Friday.
For MSU, the chance to host the NCAA tournament has come in four short years. Along the way, the Bulldogs have won the Preseason Women’s National Invitation Tournament, advanced to the quarterfinals of the Postseason WNIT, won a school-record 18 games in a row, won a school-record 27 games, won a school-record 11 games in the Southeastern Conference, finished tied for second in the SEC, and advanced to the NCAA tournament in back-to-back seasons.
‘I am good’
Holly Schaefer is not the kind of person to tell you she told you so, but she knew her husband could win in Starkville.
“It was just a feeling,” Holly said. “He had opportunities to go other places, and it just wasn’t the right fit for our family. This was from the moment I got here. It is obvious. The community is great. The university is great. They have surrounded us and supported us. I could not be more proud to be a part of the basketball team and everything that is going on here and the success they are experiencing.”
Holly remembers the phone call she made to Vic when she told him the news. There was a moment of silence, then Vic said, “You’re good?”
“I am good,” Holly said.
She then recounted everything she had done and seen. She reassured her husband she was at peace and that they could build a program in Starkville.
Vic Schaefer admits he “really didn’t have any idea” what his wife was going to tell him. The only thing he knew is he wasn’t going to think about going to MSU without his wife and children, who were in high school. That’s why the wait to talk to Holly seemed to last forever. He said he didn’t get to talk to Holly at length until later that day, which is when it finally started to sink in that he might leave Texas A&M and his longtime friend and mentor Gary Blair to coach against him in the “big, bad SEC.”
“I didn’t want to miss time with my family, and I wasn’t going without my wife,” Vic Schaefer said. “Was it a place where my family could be happy? The kids always were happy about the potential of me becoming a head coach. They always said, ‘Dad, we’re good. We can do whatever we do anywhere. If you get a chance to be a head coach we’re all in.’
‘He believed me’
“I couldn’t be more pleased. My kids had a great high school experience. We absolutely adore the city. The people here in this community have really embraced my family, have embraced me as a coach, and our team got pretty good pretty fast. We have won 75 games in the last three years. … That is pretty hard to believe, and we finished second in the SEC.”
Holly Schaefer said meeting Anne Stricklin on the plane ride from College Station, Texas, to Starkville helped set her at ease. She said she hit it off with Anne, who she now considers a “dear friend.”
After peppering Stricklin with questions, Schaefer said she toured the campus and schools in the area as well as houses and subdivisions. She said she and Anne had lunch and met with Nelle Cohen and the wives of several other MSU coaches. She said they talked about the “nitty gritty” and that she asked all of the mom questions because she wanted to make sure their children were going to fit in.
After all that, she believes Vic hearing her say she was “good” was an affirmation of his belief that a winner could be built in Starkville.
“He believed me. He could tell,” Holly said.
‘No turning back’
Four years later, Holly sits on the opposite side of the court, looking at her seat in Section 115. In front of her, her husband and his players are working through a practice. She said the journey to this point has been great because MSU allowed Schaefer to surround himself with great people, including associate head coach Johnnie Harris.
“If we didn’t believe it, we would have never come here,” Holly said. “But we knew you get the right kind of players in here and you can turn it around, and you put a product on the floor that people want to see and they’re going to support you.
“To see the success they’re experiencing, I am thrilled for them,” she added. “There is no turning back. The future is very bright here at Mississippi State.”
Holly said it is difficult to pinpoint one thing Vic has done that has enabled the program to take off. She said he has the “total package” and that he and all of the members of the coaching staff treat the players like they want to be treated and that they love them unconditionally.
“I believe if he jumped off a cliff they would be right there with him,” Holly said. “Some of them might stop and think for a second, but he has been successful his whole life, and he works so hard that attention to detail is insurmountable … He works tirelessly. I think his work ethic and his attention to detail separate him.
“He can recruit, and he has a way of drawing people to him, and so do all of the girls because they are all so personable and fun to be around. You get recruits to campus and the program sells itself. I am so proud of him. I knew he could do it.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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