The cheering started as soon as the fans saw University of Tennessee women’s basketball coach Kim Caldwell emerge from the locker room on the overhead scoreboard. By the time she reached midcourt at Food City Center, it had turned into a full-throttled standing ovation from nearly all 12,033 people in attendance.
Caldwell received a hero’s welcome as she returned to the sideline only a week after giving birth to a son.
“I tried to sneak in,” Caldwell said after No. 18 Tennessee’s 70-63 loss to No. 2 South Carolina. “I wanted to go unnoticed. [The ovation] makes it worth it, coming back.”
In her first season guiding the Lady Vols, the 36-year-old Caldwell didn’t anticipate having a major life milestone occur in the middle of the SEC gauntlet.
Conor Scott Caldwell’s arrival came during an intense portion of the schedule. Caldwell gave birth Jan. 20, and was back at practice four days later. She missed only one game – a four-point road loss to Texas – before returning to the bench a week later to coach the Lady Vols against defending national champion South Carolina.
Caldwell says she never hesitated in her decision to return so quickly.
“I love my team,” she says. “I ask a lot of them. I made sure I would give my best to them.”
Some have expressed dismay at people glorifying Caldwell’s return, feeling women shouldn’t feel pressure to get back to work right away. Others, like South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley, believe it’s a personal choice.
“Women have to make decisions like that and when they do, I feel like other women should honor them,” Staley says. “And let them know that we see you, we feel you, we hear you and I congratulated her.”
Plenty of support
Caldwell is far from alone as a woman head coach who has welcomed a child into the world during a season. There are numerous examples of women juggling the role of newborn mother and head coach. Even at UT, recent examples aren’t hard to find. UT volleyball coach Eve Rackham Watt and women’s tennis coach Alison Ojeda gave birth during their respective seasons.
“Women have the strength of 10 men,” Staley says. “No doubt about it.”
Caldwell has a strong support system in place to provide assistance during her swift return. Along with her husband, Justin Caldwell, an assistant coach on Rick Barnes’ men’s basketball staff at UT, her mom is in Knoxville to help and her sister is planning to arrive soon. “It would be a completely different story if that wasn’t the case,” Caldwell says.
The baby’s middle name of Scott is a nod to Caldwell’s father, Scott Stephens, who died in 2020 from a brain tumor. Conor was decided by Justin Caldwell.
“The unusual spelling was my husband’s choice,” Kim Caldwell says. “I lost the name drawing twice, so he picked the spelling of that name. I wanted Conner and then Scott, after my dad, was a name we’ve always had picked out for a little boy. And if we have a little girl, we’ll name her Scottie. So, we had that picked out too, and just to be able to pass a little bit of his grandpa on to him is big.”
Caldwell visited with Barnes during her pregnancy to talk about balancing coaching and parenthood. Barnes has two children and five grandchildren.
“This is what we do. It can’t be who you are,” Barnes says he told her. “If your job is your identity, you’re going to really struggle.”
Ahead of schedule
After the Lady Vols played South Carolina, UT senior guard Samara Spencer expressed her admiration for Caldwell’s strength in coming back to coach.
”I don’t have any experience, but I assume having a baby is very, very hard,” Spencer says.
“It’s not great,” Caldwell interjected, drawing laughter from the room.
Caldwell says she had a few postpartum restrictions during her first game back against the Gamecocks.
“It was hard for me to yell,” she says. “My players and my staff helped me with the yelling. I’ll know how I handled it once I get in my car and head home.”
Becoming a new mom has provided Caldwell with a swirl of emotions. It’s an exciting time of life as she builds a family alongside rebuilding the Lady Vols into national title contenders again.
Although Caldwell is frustrated by the close losses the team has suffered against ranked opponents, most outsiders believe the Lady Vols are ahead of schedule.
But as everyone has seen since she took over the program and welcomed Conor into the world, Caldwell’s schedule runs at a faster pace than others.
“You hold your son, and it kind of hits you,” Caldwell says of becoming a mother. “But it’s just kind of interesting. It’s a double life right now. You’re here, you’re coach. You’re home, you’re mom. And I think it’ll be that way for a while.”