Tennessee Lady Vol coach Kim Caldwell is not with the team in Texas and will not coach tonight following the birth of her first child. Tennessee announced on Thursday Coach Caldwell and her husband Justin have welcomed the arrival of their son Conor Scott Caldwell.
Caldwell has been mum on the plan to manage her team in her absence.
When asked last week about how things would work, Caldwell said there was one and left it at that.
“(I’m) due any day now and we have a plan, but I’m not going to share it,” Caldwell said.
Caldwell coached Sunday in Nashville her Lady Vol team fell to Vanderbilt 71-70 as the Commodores made the game winning shot on an offensive rebound.
Caldwell, who sources said had some hopes of not missing a game is likely to return to the bench on Monday night when the Lady Vols host South Carolina, but has made it clear the entire pregnancy that it was out of her hands.
“I think that I’ve probably looked at our schedule a thousand times and tried to plan it out, but God’s got it and you take it day by day,” Caldwell said on the Sports Animal back in September after announcing her pregnancy on X on September 3. “And you put your faith that God will take care of it and he gave you this blessing for a reason, and that’s what we’re going to do. We have a great staff, a great support system, a great team, so it’s going to be — it’s going to be just fine.”
In Caldwell’s absence Thursday night, assistant Jenna Burdette is taking the lead coaching chair but said in her media session on Tuesday that it would be a collaborative effort.
“Our staff, we work very well together. We are all coaching on the floor especially in practice we all have our certain areas of expertise that we really look into. We are all kind of different in a way that we all kind of focus on different things. It will be a collective effort,” Burdette explained.
Burdette, who was with Caldwell at Glenville State and Marshall, recorded Caldwell’s TV show in her place late last week and did Caldwell’s post game radio show Sunday in Nashville. Caldwell has made it clear that she plans to return to the bench as early as possible but has stated from the beginning of the pregnancy that the timetable for her return is out of her hands.
Following the South Carolina game, the Lady Vols are off till Sunday, Feb. 2nd when they play at Missouri.
The Lady Vols are 15-3 on the season and are 3-3 in SEC play after Sunday’s loss at Vanderbilt.
