Gray-Miller Focused on ‘winning the day’ as Texas Tech interim coach

During the last few weeks as she’s focused on guiding Texas Tech, Gray-Miller has heard whispers about her motivation.

“I understand what the perception is. It has gotten back to me that people think I might have had something to do with this and tried to undermine the situation,” Gray-Miller said. “I’ve even heard that I came to Tech thinking Candi might get fired and it might give me an opportunity. But anybody who knows me knows that I never wanted to be a head coach again. I’ve been very outspoken about that.”

Agreeing to be an interim coach is not always a wise career decision. There is a reason coaches are let go mid-season. The programs they leave behind are usually not set up for immediate success.

“More than anything this could hurt me because it makes it look like I can’t coach and in turn some potential employers might not hire me,” Gray-Miller said. “But I can’t worry about how it will affect me professionally or how others are viewing this. It’s all about the kids. If you are not coaching for the kids then you have no business being a college coach.”

Gray-Miller is grateful for the support she’s received from the Texas Tech administration and former head coach Marsha Sharp during the transition.

She is noticing baby steps taken by the players.

At the first practice following Whitaker’s firing, the coaches had to stop after the very first drill and make the team run sprints for not adhering to the message.

Last week, the Lady Raiders beat Kansas for their first conference victory after starting 0-6 in the Big 12. Gray-Miller received a Gatorade shower in the visiting locker room.

“It just really made me smile. It had been 18 days to that day since Candi was fired and the changed happened and it felt like everyone had been through so much,” Gray-Miller said. “To see where they had come from when Kirby Hocutt told them in the locker room about Candi being fired and then 18 days later they were celebrating in the locker room, it was pretty cool.”

Gray-Miller and the Tech assistant coaches are focusing on small goals, and implementing challenges within games.

If a player gets a certain number of rebounds between timeouts, she doesn’t have to run sprints at practice the next day. After each game, an overall winner is crowned and gets the big prize.

“It’s really stupid silly, but we have a holster and two western guns we present to the winner,” Gray-Miller said. “The kids all laugh when we pull that out, but it’s fun to them and it’s something they are starting to take pride in. It’s about the process for this team. Nothing is going to happen until you buy into the process.”

Gray-Miller never imagined a year ago she’d be living in Lubbock, Texas, yet alone taking control of a team on an interim basis.

But then again, she never imagined she’d be coaching at many of the stops in her career.

“It’s all part of the profession,” she said. “ I would love to stay here in some role and be able to see this thing happen and see Lady Raider basketball become great again. I really would. But I also know when new coaches come in they usually want to bring in their own staff. The chances of me staying are pretty small.”

Even after all the turbulence of the last 10 months, after seeing two coaches fired and trying to help players emotionally deal with the aftermath, Gray-Miller wouldn’t trade the experience.

“In an odd way this entire ordeal has been very rewarding,” she said. “Very rarely in life do you get to live your life philosophy out in a workplace and try to instill that into 18 to 22 year old young women. That is pretty cool. If that is only for two months more here, so be it.”