ABILENE – Standing in front of more than 100 friends and family and with her husband and two daughters by her side,
Julie Goodenough's professional and personal life came full circle when she was officially introduced as the ACU women's basketball coach at a press conference in the Hunter Welcome Center.
Goodenough officially began her duties as the sixth head coach in women's program history late Monday afternoon when she put her team through off-season workouts. And then on Tuesday the former head coach at Hardin-Simmons, Oklahoma State and Charleston Southern faced the media as she was welcomed back to Abilene and into the ACU family.
"I've been on an amazing journey as a head coach, and it's definitely been orchestrated by the hand of God," Goodenough said. "I've gone from Hardin-Simmons to Stillwater, Okla., and a chance to coach at Oklahoma State to Charleston, S.C., where I coached at Charleston Southern, and now back to Abilene and the great opportunity to coach at ACU. It's amazing what God has done in bringing me and my family full circle."
Goodenough thanked several people in attendance, not the least of which were husband, two daughters, and her parents. She also singled out former mentors and confidantes from HSU, among them current director of athletics John Neese, current sports information director Chad Grubbs, and former head football coach Jimmie Keeling. She also pointed out current McMurry men's basketball coach Jerry Isler, who was her coach when she played at Texas-Arlington in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
A native of Haskell, Goodenough said her return to Abilene was a chance for she and her family to return "home," and also a chance for her to continue her mission in life.
"I've always believed my mission is to be able to coach at a Christian university and make a positive impact on the lives of young women," she said. "When I first started looking into this job, I went to the ACU Web site and the first thing I looked at was the 21st Century Vision for ACU, and that is that by 2020 we will become the premier university for the education of Christ-centered, global leaders, and I knew I wanted to be part of that.
"I already knew about the great athletics traditions at ACU, but there only four schools in the country (UCLA, Stanford, USC and Kenyon College) who have won more national championships than ACU has won, and I wanted to be a part of an athletics program that produces those kinds of athletes and champions and championships and has that type of winning tradition," she said.
Goodenough said her team will play hard, fast and with great passion and that her goal is to get the Wildcats into the NCAA tournament in 2012-13.
"Our team is going to learn to play to exhaustion every day in practice so the games won't seem hard at all," she said. "I'm going to bring maximum effort and intensity to everything I do, and I'm going to demand that from my coaching staff and players. We're going to recruit and win with Godly women who are seeking excellence. We're going to win with integrity and we're going to be a team that's exciting to watch and plays extremely hard. I'm just ready to get going."
