Women's head basketball coach resigns

03/10/09 -The University of Rhode Island women's basketball head coach Tom Garrick resigned yesterday after 11-years of coaching in the URI basketball program. After finishing the 2008-09 season with a 10-21 overall record, Garrick has posted a combined record of 56-112, including a 30-60 mark in the A-10 Conference."For the past five years as the head coach, I've given my best to the University of Rhode Island women's basketball program," Garrick said. "Unfortunately, we're not where I thought we would be at this point, so I figured it's best for the Rams to go in another direction. I thought it was best for me to resign and I wish the university and the women's basketball program the best."

Since 1998, Garrick has served as both an assistant and head basketball coach at the University of Rhode Island. He was the men's assistant coach from 1998-2001 before spending 2001-2003 as the assistant women's basketball coach. He then served as the acting head coach of the women's basketball team from 2003-2004 before becoming the head coach from 2004-2009.

"I'm not sure," Garrick said when asked of his future plans. "It's an open book. There's a lot of basketball to be coached. I'm not sure where I'll land. Maybe I won't even be in basketball but that is hard for me to envision right now."

Before coaching for the Rams, the West Warwick native was a four-year letterman from 1984-1988 at URI, including a 1988 Sweet 16 appearance in the NCAA Tournament. Garrick led his squad to an all-time best 28-7 record that year. He is ninth on Rhode Island's all-time scoring list with 1,573 career points, second in career steals with 189, and fourth in career assists with 407 career dishes.

After graduating from URI, Garrick spent four years in the National Basketball Association, playing for the Los Angeles Clippers, the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Dallas Mavericks and the San Antonio Spurs. He then played five years professionally in Europe, spending two years in Germany, two in Turkey, and one in Spain.

"I love the game and I love teaching the game," Garrick said. "I'm sure that something will come up and I'm in no rush at this point."

Garrick was a two-time All-State basketball player at West Warwick High School and is recognized as one of the state's top-50 all-time players. In addition, Garrick is honored as one of the top 10 players in the University of Rhode Island basketball team's history.

"I think they'll be fine," Garrick said when asked of his team's potential down the road. "I think they have some people who are in position to do well for them and I think coming in is a very good class of freshmen. I think they have the potential to be very good in the future."

One of the players Garrick was referring to was sophomore sharp-shooter Megan Shoniker. Shoniker led her squad in scoring this past year, averaging 10.4 points per game, while contributing 3.3 rebounds per game as well.

"Everything just happened so quickly," Shoniker said. "All the girls are kind of taken aback by it. It's going to be a hard situation because he was such a great coach. We were family and when you get a part of your family taken away, it's hard to deal with."

The Rams say goodbye to six seniors this year, and Shoniker is one of eight players to return to Rhody's roster for the 2009-2010 season.

"It's definitely going to be a tough transition," Shoniker said. "The bottom line is, we have girls coming back who can really do big things here. We're just going to stick together as a team. You always have to stick together and whoever the new coach is, we're going to play hard for him. We'll go from there, and we'll see how things work out.