Experienced Verdi Takes Over Lions

If Columbia women’s basketball acting head coach Salvatore Verdi is unable to lead his team to an Ivy League championship this season, it will not be due to his personal lack of experience.

Having played college basketball himself at Keene State, he knows all the ups and downs that come with playing an extended season: the shooting slumps, the upset victories, the letdowns. Both times he reached the NCAA Tournament as an assistant coach at West Connecticut State, he tasted the fruits of a successful season. Coaching in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the National Women’s Basketball League has allowed him to create bonds with some of the greatest basketball players—male or female—in the world, including former UConn stars Sue Bird and Swin Cash.

“I think being able to share my own stories and my own experiences with [the players] definitely helps,” Verdi said.

“When you go through that experience [of making it to the NCAA Tournament,] the feeling of accomplishment makes you just want to continue it even more,” he added. “When you get to that point, everyone is doing everything they can to move on and work together, and that’s what we need to continue to do here.”

Verdi, who earned a master’s degree from the University of Hartford in computer technology, played three years at Keene State—during which time he was able to set the school record for field goal percentage in a single game at 90 percent—before a back injury ended his career.

After spells as a high school varsity boy’s head coach and as a men’s assistant at Western Connecticut, Keene, and Hartford, Verdi moved over to women’s basketball. Despite having been around the men’s game his entire life, though, Verdi says the transition to coaching women’s basketball hasn’t bothered him.

“That was probably the one thing that I thought I would miss, the [men’s] athletic ability...” Verdi said, “[but] I think every day the women’s game is improving and getting better. The common goal is to win, and you’re doing everything you can to make sure that everyone’s on the same page.”

When he was appointed head coach last Thursday, Verdi inherited a team which has never had a winning season and which has lately struggled with consistency. A resident of Berlin, Connecticut who sometimes wakes up at 3:15 a.m. to begin his two and a half hour commute to work, Verdi hopes that through hard work the Lions will finally be able to shake mediocrity.

“I can do one of two things, and this is what I told [the players]: I could leave at the end of the day, and go home, or I could stay here all night and continue to prepare our kids to win an Ivy League championship, and that’s what I’m all about,” he said.

And despite the awkward circumstances surrounding former head coach Traci Waites’s resignation and his appointment, Verdi relishes his new prospects.

“I am very, very excited about this opportunity, it’s something that I’ve been waiting for,” Verdi said. “I am addicted to this game, and that’s the bottom line. It’s everything that I want to do.”