Four candidates for the head women's basketball coaching position will interview this week, University of Nebraska at Omaha athletic director Bob Danenhauer said today.
The four who were selected from an initial field of 79, are Annette Wiles, head women's coach at Fort Hays State University; Tony Hobson, head women's coach at Hastings College; Patricia Shearer, head women's coach at Fort Lewis College, and Amy Gusso-Williams, assistant women's coach at Oklahoma State University.
"I think we have four people who have demonstrated their ability to coach and to win at the collegiate level," Danenhauer said
The four candidates will not be available for interviews while on campus. A successor to Lisa Carlsen, who coached the Maverick women's basketball team for four seasons before resigning in February, will be named sometime next week.
Wiles has compiled a 67-46 record at Fort Hays State in four seasons. The 1991 graduate of Fort Hays State also recorded seven straight 20-win seasons and a 163-48 record at Bethany College from 1993-2000. She earned her master's degree from Fort Hays State as well, in 1991.
Hobson, a 1981 graduate of Hastings College, was the associate head coach at Hastings before becoming the head coach in 2001. He has guided the team to a 93-10 record while winning the 2002 and 2003 NAIA championships and was the 2004 runner-up. He compiled a 124-44 record as the head women's coach at Cloud County (Kan.) Community College from 1983-89, was the head boys coach at Superior (Neb.) High School from 1994-97 and had a 78-22 mark as the head women's coach at Barton County (Kan.) Community College from 1997-2000. He has twice been named the NAIA coach of the year.
Shearer led Fort Lewis to a school-record 23 wins (23-8) in 2003-04, her fourth year as the head coach. Her teams have had winning records in three of four seasons and she has twice been named the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference's coach of the year. The 1990 Rocky Mountain College graduate received her master's degree from Arizona in 1992 and then was the head girls basketball coach at Catalina (Ariz.) Foothills High School coach from 1995-2000, recording a 122-32 record.
Gusso-Williams, a player and 1998 graduate of Nebraska-Lincoln, was a graduate assistant at Nebraska-Kearney in 1999-2000 while earning her master's degree from that school. She served as an assistant coach at Texas-San Antonio in 2000-01 and has been an assistant coach and the recruiting coordinator at Oklahoma State since 2001. The Cowgirls were 8-20 last season.