The Lady Huskies are starting a new stage in development. But while the season doesn’t start until months from now, the strides have already begun.

It’s been a wild year of upheaval and scrambling in the coaching ranks of Division I, leading to numerous openings and switches. The Huskies’ previous head coach, June Daugherty, was fired March 19th after hitting a plateau as far as results on the court go. UW Athletic Director Todd Turner decided it was time to turn the excitement up a notch for Husky fans, and that meant doing a little spring cleaning. After 11 seasons and six visits to the NCAA tournament, Daugherty was let go. It’s possible that the 79 – 60 loss to Iowa State in the girls’ first-round NCAA tournament game to end this season was Turner’s breaking point, but he reasoned otherwise. The team faced declining game attendance, the loss of top Washington high-school recruits to other universities, a lack of a strong finish to the season, and an disappointing return on university investment in women’s athletics.

While Daugherty was undoubtedly let down by the change, she picked herself up pretty quick. Ironically enough, she landed herself a spot as head coach at UW rival, Washington State, just a month later. It’ll be interesting to see how thick the tension will get when the Cougs and Huskies go head-to-head next season and if the aged Daugherty will take swipes at the fresh coach who replaced her.

The UW is taking large strides in the way of extending its boundaries. Washington is now the first major college to have black coaches for each of the three biggest sports programs. For the 07 – 08 season, four black women have been picked as Division I head coaches in women’s college basketball. According to the Black Coaches Association, this is more than 20 percent of the approximately 18 openings. While this may seem negligible, the facts have actually become pretty noticeable. Close to half of D-I’s players are black, yet black women only hold nine percent of head coaching jobs.

Penn State’s new coach, Coquese Washington, is also among the selected in the growing minority. She and Tia Jackson were both part of a Black Coaches Association program designed to recruit and develop minority coaches two years ago. And they did what they had planned to. The women were among some of the division’s top picks in the coaching pool, as Texas, LSU and Michigan were also on the lookout for a new head.

Known for its competitive salaries, the Pac-10 offers high pay based on the academics of the athletes, performance of the team and administrative goals. Jackson, as a first-time head coach, is starting with a respectable base of $180,000 that could eventually be pushed past Daugherty’s previous salary of $300,000.

Jackson’s impressive bio is worth giving credit for. The ‘95 graduate of the University of Iowa served as an assistant coach at Virginia Commonwealth University from 1996 – 99 and took the same job at Stanford in 1999. After a year as a Cardinal, Jackson spent the summer playing professionally in the WNBA in its inaugural season as the ninth draft pick overall. Having racked up one season, 28 games, a 2.8-point average and 2.1 rebound average for the Phoenix Mercury, she was forced to end her career due to injury. Deciding it was time to pick up her coaching career again, UCLA hired her as its assistant coach, where she served as an asset until 2005. Labeled as one of the top recruiters in the nation, 34-year old Jackson headed down to Duke and joined the Blue Devil staff the following summer. After wearing a wide array of colors, Jackson will hopefully provide for the purple and revive the Dawghouse.