Schuckman: Bailey left QU women’s basketball program riding upward trajectory

QUINCY — Kaci Bailey never intended to leave Quincy University as abruptly as she did.

“Obviously, I wouldn’t have bought a house,” she said.

Bailey never sold it as a lifelong commitment to coach women’s basketball here either.

“As I told (QU athletic director Josh Rabe), QU has never been in the mix to be my last stop, my last leap,” she said.

It was the perfect starting point for Bailey, and she was the perfect coach to reinvigorate the Hawks. 

That’s why, after two years at the helm and a dramatic turnaround that ended with the first Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament appearance since 2016, Bailey’s decision to say goodbye was equally shocking and disappointing for many.

Bailey officially resigned Tuesday and was introduced Wednesday morning as the next women’s basketball coach at Drury, the winningest NCAA Division II program in the nation in the past 24 seasons. She had gone 22-36 in two seasons at QU, nearly equaling the 25 victories the program accumulated the previous five seasons combined.

“I just felt like I couldn’t pass it up,” Bailey said. “If you don’t take it now, when does that opportunity come?”

She’s right. Elite jobs don’t open often, and when they do, the stars have to align to make it feasible and practical to take a leap of faith. Those stars began aligning 13 months ago.

That’s when Nyla Milleson, the original architect of Drury’s success in women’s basketball and a coach Bailey has a history and friendship with, returned to the Springfield, Mo., school as its athletic director in February 2022. Bailey followed a nine-win season at Quincy with a 13-win campaign and a top-eight finish in the GLVC regular-season standings.

Milleson watched with interest as Bailey nearly engineered one of the biggest upsets in GLVC history. In the opening round of the GLVC Tournament, eighth-seeded Quincy lost 79-78 to top-seeded Drury, a program that went 20-0 in the league during the regular season and has won seven consecutive conference tourney titles.

“Not going to lie, I was a bit nervous for a couple of minutes a couple of weeks ago in St. Charles,” Milleson said of the GLVC Tournament matchup while speaking during Bailey’s introductory press conference. “I was not cheering for her that day, but I watched what she did.”

After Amy Eagan resigned as Drury’s head coach to take the job at NCAA Division I Lindenwood University, Milleson received applications and inquiries from “all levels and all across the country.” Yet, one name that she was familiar with resonated.

It was Bailey.

“We will benefit from her presence,” Milleson said.

Milleson has first-hand knowledge of that. During her tenure as the head coach at George Mason University, Milleson hired Bailey, who spent four seasons on her staff. They built a bond that enabled Milleson to speak highly of Bailey during Quincy’s coaching search and for her to call upon Bailey in this instance.

As joyful of a reunion as that is, it didn’t make saying goodbye to her Quincy players any easier.

“The hardest thing to do was sit in that locker room and tell those young ladies I was leaving,” Bailey said. “I was crying before I even got in the locker room. It was emotional. It was emotional on both ends. I’m a big relationship person. I think we do a good job of building relationships with our players and taking care of them.

“We’re not the biggest, fastest, strongest, but we had a group that believed in each other and worked really hard. We had buy-in.”

It allowed Bailey to change the program’s trajectory.

“Every coach’s goal is to leave a place better than they found it,” Bailey said. “There’s no doubt I left it better. I got it out of the trenches. We started something really good. On the court, we did a lot of good things, but in the community with the relationships we built and the things we started, we had an impact. I’m as proud of that as much as I am with the success we had on the court.”

She’ll take the same relationship-building approach to Drury, which is why Milleson felt Bailey was ready to guide such a tradition-rich program.

The faith they share in each other showed in the emotional moment when Milleson introduced Bailey as the Panthers’ coach. About the only thing missing was for Milleson to pump the Peaches & Herb classic “Reunited” through the sound system during the introductory press conference.

“That would have been pretty epic,” Bailey said. “That would have been good.”