{"id":19088,"date":"2024-07-01T15:03:25","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T19:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=19088"},"modified":"2024-07-01T15:03:25","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T19:03:25","slug":"dreams-in-motion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/dreams-in-motion\/","title":{"rendered":"Dreams in Motion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Dream big.\u201d It\u2019s common advice imparted to youth to stimulate excitement and promise. Pursuing <\/em>that dream is a different story. It requires courage, commitment, sacrifice, and above all, resiliency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cait Wetmore dreamed of becoming a head coach of a women\u2019s basketball program, and it took raw determination to realize that dream. Monmouth\u2019s Director of Athletics Jennifer Sansevero named Wetmore the 10th head coach of the women\u2019s basketball program in April. The New Jersey native previously served as associate head coach at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and is elated to lead the Hawks basketball program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am extremely grateful to President Leahy and the athletic administration for the opportunity to coach at this incredible institution,\u201d said Wetmore, who also served as an associate head coach at UNC Greensboro. \u201cWhen someone sees something in you, it\u2019s empowering, and I want to thank Jen for her belief in me to lead this pro- gram. I\u2019m ready to put my head down and give this program everything I have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The journey to fulfilling a dream can become a test of character, and Wetmore\u2019s desire to coach was tested from the onset. After serving as a graduate assistant at Columbia University, she was named assistant coach in 2012 at her alma mater, Adelphi University. Wetmore was one of two paid coaches on the Panthers\u2019 staff and earned a whopping $18,000 salary while living in Long Beach, New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy struck Wetmore\u2019s apartment complex, forcing her to vacate for months. Needing a place to live that was near campus so that she could continue coaching, but not wanting to trouble family and friends, Wetmore was forced to use her car as a temporary residence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI understand now that asking for help is not a burden,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople innately want to help people, and we all need to lean on each other from time to time. But that experience left no question of how badly I wanted to coach. I was all in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every assistant coach\u2014particularly at the Division II level\u2014needs something to break their way to propel their career. Wetmore attended a professional development conference and caught the eye of Wendy Palmer, the head coach of Division I UNC Greensboro and a former WNBA player. One year later, Palmer had an opening on her staff and contacted Wetmore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was stunned,\u201d Wetmore recalled. \u201cNetworking was not my strength back then, but she liked my work ethic. I\u2019m a grinder, and I think that\u2019s what her staff needed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Athletic administrators often attended practices at UNC Greensboro. Sansevero was an assistant athletic director there at the time and took notice of Wetmore\u2019s work habits and her impact on the program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI remember liking Jen because we were both from New Jersey,\u201d Wetmore said. \u201cWe had the same type of attitude that was unique to those in North Carolina. Fast forward 10 years, and she called me about the position here. I couldn\u2019t believe she remembered me, and I\u2019m so humbled that she saw something in me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Observing something special in Wetmore has been a pattern. She\u2019s extremely passionate, and her focus on learning about and understanding each player is an asset. Wetmore earned her master\u2019s degree in clinical social work from Columbia and applies what she learned to coaching student-athletes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cClinical counseling trains you to understand people,\u201d said Wetmore. \u201cTo be a successful coach, you need to be a good teacher. You have to understand how other people think and how they receive information. I have 15 athletes on the team, and none of them think or receive information the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked what attribute in a player appeals to her most, Wetmore responded, \u201ca level of resiliency.\u201d In other words, someone who has what it takes to pursue their dream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With determination and heart, new Head Coach Cait Wetmore looks to drive the women\u2019s basketball program forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":19090,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"{\"x\":60,\"y\":13}","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics"],"thumbnail":"\"\"","catString":"Athletics","issue":"Spring\/Summer 2024","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19088"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19097,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19088\/revisions\/19097"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}