Ari Wideman is here. She’s the new women’s basketball head coach at Cal State Bakersfield. She’s going to be coaching her first home game in the Icardo Center when the team plays a special 11 a.m. Friday game against Colgate.
She inherited a program that finished 8-21 overall, 5-15 in the Big West Conference. Last year’s team went 5-8 at home, 3-12 on the road and ended the regular season with a six-game losing streak, topped off by a 37-point loss on senior day against Hawai’i. There was no Big West Conference Tournament trip to Las Vegas for that Roadrunners team.
It was time to start anew and to find someone young, hungry, able to build a new culture and exist in a college basketball landscape that’s changed. CSUB thinks they’ve found that person in Wideman.
A former standout at the University of Nevada-Reno, she also played professionally in Iceland. She got the coaching itch while in Iceland with youth teams and then made assistant stops with Prairie View A&M University (grad assistant), went to San Jose State for four years, Arkansas State where she was a recruiting coordinator, too, and then last year at University of Toledo.
Taking over as head coach at CSUB she’s ready to make a difference. She already has as the first female to be the program’s head coach and she’s the first Black female head coach in CSUB’s 50-year history.
And now? She just wants to win and make a difference. “I don’t like losing.”
What appealed most to you, other than becoming a head coach for the first time?
“I’m from California, and I was living and working in Ohio last year. I’m originally from Chino Hills and it was a huge positive. It was nice to be back in California. And, I love rebuilds. When I was an assistant at San Jose State, when I first got there we won four games. The next year, we got to 19. It was the largest turnaround in the country. I’ve been around a couple of rebuilds and I like it because you can just start to establish your own culture of winning habits.
“This seemed like a place where a lot of people might say, ‘that’s a bad job’ or, ‘I wouldn’t take it. I’m the kind of person who believes that if you can do faith with a little bit, you’ll be able to do faith with a lot. I love it when people think there’s nothing there but then you can turn it into something and people will believe in it. I really love making something that looks like nothing and turning it into something.”
If rebuilding a basketball program is something you enjoy being part of, how did this develop?
“I feel I’ve been an underdog all my life. I got one scholarship offer to college, University of Nevada Reno and that’s where I ended up playing and having a good career. I like taking chances, too. I’m a risk taker. I really believe I can influence and build belief and culture so that is really exciting.”
When you are working on building and changing a culture, what are some ways in which you want to do that at Cal State Bakersfield?
“Our culture here is ‘work to win.’ I came up with it about eight years ago as a graduate assistant. Do your daily habits match your goals? My job is to make sure those are in alignment. We can be open to success if we’re working to win. I have three pillars for my players: SPC. S is for skill, everyone has a skillset to maximize, whether it is basketball or not. P is for preparation. You should be there before you get there. Scouting, film watching, practice and planning all has a strategy. Preparation is everything. And then C is for confidence in everything you do. This is important for women, especially, in this program. I think if you are skilled, prepared and confident, you can be expecting to win. These three pillars are really important in working to win. The work has to match what we want.”
As your first head coaching job, what lessons and observations have you taken from those who coached you, or who you worked for and added to what you want to be as a head coach?
“I’ve had great coaches from age 5 to when I was finishing my playing career and then who I’ve worked for as an assistant. Jamie Craighead, who was my first boss at San Jose State, she played an uptempo game style and I’m a big believer in kids to play to concepts than play calls. It teaches you how to think and play the game. My most recent boss, Tricia Cullop, was at Toledo for 16 years and she was the winningest coach there, but now coaches at the University of Miami. I went to work for her at Toledo to learn how to run a sustainable program. Not just on the court, but everything from marketing to community service, I wanted to see how she operated in excellence. She was all about the details. And then my Nevada Coach, Jane Albright. We talk once a month. Relationships are very important to me.”
How about being head coach of a program now at CSUB and how that process happened. Did you think you were ready?
“Logical next step was to be a head coach, but I thought maybe at 35? I’m a couple of years ahead of schedule. But it felt right. When Kyle (Conder, director of athletics/AVP) called to let me know he was interested, I thought, ‘I don’t know,’ but the more I thought about it, and the more I prayed about it, and then I said, ‘yes, I’m going for it.’ And it has worked out.”
You had to start this rebuild by recruiting just about all of the players. Thoughts on this roster?
“We have a mixture. We have Division I transfers, some junior college kids, a few freshmen. Our starters all have experience playing at this level, which is nice. That honestly helps when you’re teaching everyone something new. Taylor Caldwell is from Bakersfield and she is a steady, calm presence. Ary Dizon works so hard and I think she can become an all-conference player. Garrisen Freeman is one of our captains. Melissa Secchiaroli is a fifth-year player from Moorhead State and she’s steady. Cheyennne Forney is a post player and we’ll have her for one season. We have an experienced group, and now it is about getting everyone connected.”
