Being a private person from a small town, Kim Caldwell keeps her business to herself.
That’s why she ducked and dodged questions for months about her first pregnancy.
Then the woman who announced with a social media post on Sept. 3 that “Baby Caldwell” was on the way realized that being the first-year coach of the historic Tennessee Lady Vols’ women’s basketball program allows her to help other working mothers not stress out or feel alone.
“I have an opportunity here to help the next person that is going to get pregnant during basketball season or anyone that’s going to get pregnant during a time of their life that’s stressful,” Caldwell told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “And for most women, that’s all the time.”
Caldwell is dealing with plenty of stress herself. The coach who turned 36 in November is due to give birth any day now with the 15th-ranked Lady Vols (14-2) in the meat of the Southeastern Conference schedule.
It doesn’t help Caldwell that those two losses came by a combined three points to teams that were ranked in the top 10.
“Those three points haunt me every day,” Caldwell said. “They haunt me in practice. They hopefully haunt our players of just how can we get those back? How can we improve? So we’ve tried to tighten things up on them a little bit and learn from these losses.”
Athletic director Danny White went outside the Lady Vols’ pipeline when hiring Caldwell last April as the third coach since Pat Summitt retired from the program she built while barnstorming for women’s basketball.
Tennessee has yet to miss the NCAA Tournament that Summitt won eight times, and those banners hang above the court named for her, with Summitt’s statue across the street from the arena. Neither Holly Warlick nor Kellie Harper, who played for Summitt, could get the Lady Vols back to the Final Four.
Caldwell took Marshall to the NCAA Tournament last season for the first time since 1997. She arrived at Tennessee with a 217-31 career record with NCAA Tournament berths — seven at her alma mater Division II Glenville State, where she won the 2022 national championship and had two Final Four berths.
Coaching at Tennessee? Not something Caldwell ever imagined.
That’s not stopping her from trying to win like she did in her previous stops while getting Tennessee back to where Lady Vols fans expect.
She’s running the same style that worked at Glenville State and Marshall. That makes the Lady Vols tough to scout with their discombobulated, frantic attack up and down the court. Her players had to work hard once she arrived to be in condition, ready to run for 40 minutes and more if needed.
That tenacity helped Tennessee rally from 19 down in the third quarter before losing 87-86 to then-No. 9 Oklahoma on Jan. 5. A few days later, the Lady Vols were down 18 to then-No. 6 LSU before the Tigers had a last-second layup for an 89-87 win.
Before the game, LSU coach Kim Mulkey gave Caldwell a gift bag filled with baby towels, lotion and a onesie following a tradition that she has been doing since she was at Baylor.
Mulkey credited Summitt’s own example as a mentor to her when Mulkey was an assistant coach at Louisiana Tech. Summitt’s son, Tyler, was born in September 1990.
“(She) basically mentored me and said: ‘You can do this. Don’t you get out of the business. You can have a baby and you can raise a child and you can be a great coach,’” Mulkey said of Summitt.
The Lady Vols host Mississippi State (15-3) on Thursday night as part of the 13th annual “We Back Pat” fundraiser in conjunction with the Pat Summitt Foundation and the SEC. This game has a personal tie for Caldwell, whose grandmother had Alzheimer’s disease.
Being both mom and coach is still to come for Caldwell, who has worn an oversized shirt, along with her assistants, all season to keep the attention focused on the Lady Vols. Whether Caldwell is having a boy or a girl remains private as well for now.
She told reporters in Knoxville there is a plan in place for the Lady Vols when the baby arrives.
Caldwell said only God knows when she will give birth or how quickly she is able to rejoin the Lady Vols. The SEC Tournament starts March 5, with the NCAA Tournament starting March 21 and 22 and Tennessee a possible host for the first weekend.
“God willing … I definitely have plans to return sooner than later,” Caldwell said. “But you just never know what is going to happen. And everyone has a different birth story. And so, again, you’re kind of all prepared for everything.”
