Near center court in the cool, half-lit Sports Pavilion is a row of folding chairs. In early July, this is where Brenda Oldfield, new Gopher women’s basketball coach, likes to meet. Open and full of promise, the arena is a fitting metaphor for the situation in which the Gopher women’s basketball program finds itself.

The recent past is not glorious. The team has not had a winning record in seven years, since Carol Ann Shudlick graduated in 1994. The Gophers have won a grand total of nine Big Ten games in the past six seasons. Players have transferred out or quit with alarming regularity. Cheryl Littlejohn was fired in May for NCAA violations that have brought self-imposed recruiting limits to the current staff.

But Oldfield is undaunted. The outgoing and personable Cedar Rapids, Iowa, native—whose husband, Steve, was recently hired as an assistant golf pro at Hazeltine National Golf Course in Chaska—comes in after coaching Ball State University to its best record ever in just her second season as a head coach. Although only 32 years old, Oldfield has several years of big-college experience as an assistant at Iowa State. "Her enthusiasm and her work ethic is a combination that will go a long way," says Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly, who hired Oldfield (then Brenda Frese) when he became the Cyclones coach in 1995. "She did a great job at Ball State and I know she’ll do the work. She won’t sit back and wait for things to happen."

Fennelly, who has built a national power at Iowa State, has no doubts that Oldfield will be able to turn the Gopher program in the right direction. "This is a great hire," he says. "Brenda is much more mature then her years. I’m sure she’ll be very successful and be there a long, long time."

Before heading out on a summer recruiting trip, Oldfield sat down to talk.

Q: You’re the youngest head coach in the Big Ten. Do you have the experience to get this program turned around?

A: I knew I was ready to be head coach two years ago because I had done everything as an assistant at Iowa State except the actual game coaching. But I’m glad I was able to go to Ball State first. I think it would be hard to go from a big-time program as an assistant to a Division I head-coaching job in a top-caliber conference and team.

I needed that first year as a head coach to figure out, OK, how do you delegate and how do you do this and do that? The demands on your time are so much more compared with as an assistant. You are always taking work home with you as a head coach, thinking about what’s next. It was definitely a transition. Iowa State, Ball State, Minnesota have all been logical steps for me.

Ball State was similar to here in that they hadn’t had a lot of success but had everything in place. They just needed someone to come in and infuse it with some energy. I can’t see any reason why you can’t be successful here. It comes back to ownership with me, which is where it should be, to be quite honest. I’ve got to make the right hires for a coaching staff and then we’ve got to have the skills to recruit and get our team ready to play. But, as I said, everything is in place.

Being young and having enthusiasm and being able to go into households and relate to young people are definitely selling points. I think college kids want to see that you are there fighting for them, that they can trust you, that you’re loyal. I think you’ve got to really be able to communicate with them so they understand why you’re doing things.

Q: How have the players reacted to your hiring?

A: They’ve been very positive. I’ve only met about half the team because the other half are home for the summer. I’ve called and contacted everyone who is off campus, and that’s been hard.

Q: Is being near home part of what attracted you to this job?

A: There were a lot of factors, but being close to home—and to the University of Iowa, where we’ll play every year, only 30 minutes from home—was one of them. Having grown up in Iowa I’ve felt very comfortable here. There couldn’t have been a better fit as far as the recruiting contacts I’ve had, being close to family, and being in a conference I watched and admired growing up.

Q: Did you ever play the six-on-six version of basketball that was played in Iowa?

A: I actually played six-on-six all the way up until eighth grade, and then we switched over to five-on-five. I feel like I have a little history that I can relate when people talk about that. I was fortunate that we made the jump in high school so I could get recruited for college. I was definitely an offensive player. [In six-on-six, three players stay in the defensive end and the other three play only offense at the other end.] I did a lot of scoring. I remember putting up 40, 50 points in junior high. It was a lot of fun. Even today my coaching is centered around offense and I think a big reason is because I love to score. I wouldn’t tell the kids these days that you don’t have to learn how to play defense, but I definitely loved that experience of playing only offense.

Q: Were sports important in your family?

A: I was lucky because I came from a really athletic family. There were five girls and one boy and we all grew up playing sports. The three youngest sisters, we all got basketball scholarships, and then my brother got a baseball scholarship. I was fortunate that my sister Marsha [whom Oldfield recently hired as a Gopher assistant coach] and I played on the same high school team. My senior year, her sophomore year, we won a state high school title, the first one for Cedar Rapids Washington, so it was a neat experience.

Q: When did you start thinking about becoming a coach?

A: I signed a full-ride scholarship to Arizona, [but] I ended up having a lot of injury problems after my sophomore year. I ended up having four foot surgeries over the course of two and a half years, two on each foot. I don’t think I realized it at the time because it was so traumatic, but that was the time that really molded me into coaching. I knew I still had a lot of passion for the game and loved the game. It made me sit back and say, "OK, your career may be over. What else can you do?"

By my fifth year I couldn’t play anymore, so I spent a year as the only full-time assistant at Pima College [in Tucson]. Because the head coach was involved in a business, I actually got to be the head coach for a few games. To be thrown into it that young and be actually coaching at that level was really neat.

After I graduated from Arizona I was fortunate enough to get on as a graduate assistant at Kent State University in Ohio and get my master’s degree. I got bumped up to a full-time assistant my second year when we lost one of our assistants.

Q: Why were you so successful in recruiting Minnesota players to Iowa State?

A: I’ve never been afraid to work, and Bill Fennelly at Iowa State knew he could send me out. There was and is a wealth of talent in Minnesota. I mean a wealth of talent. So I started really developing a network up in this state. There seemed to be a special connection with Minnesota kids too. I was able to make a lot of contacts up here. It’s kind of ironic how it has all fallen into place: from those contacts and the success we had at Iowa State, and then going on to be head coach at Ball State, and then it is just a natural fit to be able to come full circle back here.

Q: Do you think Minnesota high school players will want to stay in the state?

A: I’ve felt that they do, even when I was at Iowa State. Why wouldn’t you want to stay near home? If I had been looked at by a school in Iowa, I would have stayed at home. You get to play in front or your family and friends. If you want to go on and get a job after you graduate, you’re going to have a lot more networks and ties.

Plus, Minnesota is a great school. When I was walking our staff around, I was telling them, "Remember our first look because this is what recruits are going to see." It was just awesome. It’s such a great campus and there is so much support here to allow them to be successful. There are so many reasons to come here.

Q: Do the sanctions and NCAA investigation concern you?

A: I was worried about that in terms of recruiting, but I haven’t felt it a lot. Maybe we haven’t felt it because we address it right away. We’re always straightforward and open about "This is what we’ve inherited. This is why the position came open. This is why I’ve been fortunate enough to be hired." The negative situation turned out to be a positive for me. These are just things we’ve got to be able to work through.

Q: How have you been received by the community?

A: It’s been overwhelmingly positive, even more than I ever imagined it would be. It’s exciting to have that kind of feedback. I think you can really get a sense that people are really hungry and excited to get this thing turned around.

Q: What will fans see next year on the court?

A: I’m very intense. People will see that. I demand a lot in the sense that when we get on the floor, when we get into games, we’re going to work hard. Our style is going to be fun, it’s going to be up-tempo, it’s going to be running. When we have the personnel it’s going to be scoring a lot of points.

We’ve been really banged up with injuries. My main concern is being able to get these players through these injuries. I feel like I have a good sense of the current team, [but] I want to give them a fair shake in the sense of "Have you improved in the summer? With this coaching change, have you done the things you need to do?" I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. A lot of people can raise their games in the summer and bring that back in the fall.

Q: Will it be several years before we see a winner?

A: I’m cautious about putting a number on it. We’ve inherited this situation of self-imposed sanctions. Then to walk in and only have two scholarships available [for next year] is almost unheard of in Division I coaching. You’d like to walk in and have [more open spots] so you have more scholarships. But definitely three, four years down the road you should see a change, going up the ladder in the Big Ten. It takes longer than that to get yourself really up there. We’ve been at the bottom for how long? To take those kinds of steps will definitely take time. But just like you can get into a pattern of losing, you can get into a pattern of winning.

Q: What do you envision for the program in the long term?

A: My vision, the first day I walked in here, was seeing this place packed. Then I walked out of here and walked into Williams Arena and envisioned that place packed. Those are the steps. I know it can be done from the excitement I’ve felt out there and with the talent in this state. It’s doable, but like with volleyball, you’ve got to win. [The Gopher volleyball team had the fourth-highest average attendance in the country in 2001.] At Iowa State when I came in we averaged 500 people a game, and when I left to go be the head coach we averaged 10,000-plus. The same thing at Ball State: I walked in and we were getting 250, and then in my second year we were getting 1,000. So I know that kind of progression is going to take place.

What I would like to develop as a coach is the kind of program where you’ve built some tradition and you have alumni and former players who want to come back and are excited to come back, players who are recognized and maybe are playing in the [professional] league. That’s what it’s all about, the relationships with the players and the community. That to me would be the neatest thing, to watch that go on. That’s a lot of stuff out there that I’m envisioning, but to me that is when you are really an established program.