Pam Evans Smith’s legacy lives on with Wittenberg’s hiring of Kolbe

“She is the reason I got into college coaching,” Kolbe said. “She’s the reason I went to Wittenberg.”

Wittenberg announced the hiring of Kolbe a little over three weeks after Tamika Williams-Jeter left Wittenberg after one season to take the head coaching job with the Dayton Flyers. Kolbe spent the last four seasons with the Cincinnati Bearcats on Michelle Clark-Heard’s staff. She was an assistant coach for one season and was promoted to associate head coach in April 2019.

Kolbe is the second straight Division I assistant coach hired by Wittenberg Athletic Director Brian Agler to coach the women’s basketball team. Williams-Jeter left Ohio State to coach Wittenberg. Like Williams-Jeter, Kolbe will be a first-time head coach at Wittenberg.

Kolbe said Agler called her on the same day Williams-Jeter was hired at Dayton.

“We were real happy with how our season ended,” Agler said, “and the job Tamika did in developing a foundation and building on top of that. We want to keep moving in the right direction. We want to keep building this. The job opened, and I contacted Melissa early in the process. She went through a lengthy interview process. We felt how positive this was going be for our program, not just because of the experience she has at the college level but more so from the fact that she is an alum. She played for Pam, who developed a great legacy here. At one point, we had a strong tradition in women’s basketball, and we feel like we’re headed back in that same direction. We felt Melissa is the person that can get us there.”

Kolbe, a graduate of West Geauga High School, 30 minutes east of Cleveland, played for Wittenberg from 1996-99. She helped lead the Tigers to three North Coast Athletic Conference championships and two NCAA tournament appearances.

Kolbe was a first-team all-conference selection as a senior. She ranks fifth in school history in career field-goal percentage (.511, 271-530).

Kolbe said she knew she wanted to play for Wittenberg within five minutes of sitting down in Smith’s office during her visit to campus for the first time.

“I just knew that’s who I wanted to really put it on the line for just because of who she was as a person,” Kolbe said.

Kolbe knew Smith’s office door was always open. She could go to her about anything.

“At Wittenberg, you wear a lot of hats, but she always had time for us,” Kolbe said, “and that’s something I feel like I have always really carried over in my role as an assistant coach and I will continue to carry over as a head coach.”

Smith advised Kolbe to look for a job as a graduate assistant after graduation so she could get into coaching while working on her master’s degree in counseling. She wrote the letter of recommendation that got Kolbe that first job at Valdosta State, where she worked from 1999-2001.

Kolbe then worked at Mercer (2001-02), Eastern Carolina (2002-08), Eastern Kentucky (2008-14) and Mount Saint Mary’s (2014-15) before joining Clark-Heard’s staff at Western Kentucky in 2015. She worked there for three years before following Clark-Heard to Cincinnati.

Kolbe’s coaching career often prevented her from visiting Wittenberg to see her old program play, but she did come back for homecoming during her time at UC and saw the new indoor facility, The Steemer, for the first time. Seeing the campus and arena again this past weekend, knowing she was taking over the program, was emotional.

“You look at all the banners that have been put up and know that’s the history, but that’s also where we’re moving,” Kolbe said. “That’s the goal, and that’s what we’re going to work toward every single day. Walking in there was definitely a full-circle moment for me.”

Kolbe always said she never planned on being a head coach, but being an associate head coach prepared her for this opportunity. She has always had a big part in helping her head coaches run their programs.

“I’ve been very fortunate to work for a lot of great bosses that have given me a lot of freedom and have really pushed me and forced me outside of my comfort zone,” Kolbe said. “I am ready, and I’ve been a part of creating a schedule, planning workouts, recruiting obviously, player management, conflict management. I’m very thankful to Michelle Clark-Heard for giving me the opportunity to be her associate head coach and trusting me with so many aspects of her program because I know without that I wouldn’t feel the way I do going into this opportunity.”

Kolbe met with her new players for the first time Monday.

“I’m looking forward to building those relationships and getting to know them as people first, and then we’re going to figure out the basketball piece,” Kolbe said. “I know we’re going to be competitive. Tamika laid a great foundation, winning the conference championship last season and going to the NCAA tournament. I know that them being able to accomplish something that they had not yet in their careers will motivate them to accomplish even more, which I’m very excited about.”