Lady Vol head coach Kim Caldwell announces pregnancy
First year Tennessee Lady Vol basketball coach Kim Caldwell will make her debut on the sidelines on Halloween as the Lady Vols host Carson-Newman in exhibition play.
That will not be the Caldwell family’s only debut of the year. On her personal social media page on Tuesday, Caldwell announced that her and husband, Justin, are expecting their first child in the winter of 2025. Caldwell’s due date is in January Volquest has been told.
The Caldwell’s, who were married in Sevierville, celebrated their one year anniversary back in May. The 35-year old Caldwell was introduced as the new Lady Vol head coach on April 9th coming from Marshall where she led the Thundering Herd to a 26-7 season and the NCAA tournament.
Caldwell replaced former Lady Vol Kelli Harper who was relieved of duties at the end of last season.
Athletic Director Danny White believes that Caldwell is a rising star in women’s basketball.
“Coaches become brands of themselves. Sometimes it because they are a high level player somewhere. Sometimes it’s because they have had success at a high level program. We can’t fall in love with just that brand,” White said. “It’s my job to see a little deeper into that with some substance and identify people with the talent and ability to do something different for us. What we are talking about doing here, what Pat Summitt did here is to win national titles and southeastern conference titles. That’s like finding a needle in a haystack. So the chances of that person being well known to everybody, it probably shouldn’t be a huge surprise that it’s not household name. I have had a lot of success identifying people on their way up and I think Kim is really talented.
“Obviously you would rather have a little more of a sample size, but if you didn’t hire her this time someone else was going to. I think she’s going to be one of the best basketball coaches in the country and I think we have a great one for the future.”
The Lady Vols are scheduled to open SEC play on the road at Texas A&M on January 2nd.
