Eastern found 101 reasons for women’s basketball coach Linda Wunder not to return to Charleston next season.

Director of athletics Rich McDuffie announced Monday Wunder, the women’s head basketball coach for the past five years, will not have her contract renewed for the 2004-2005 season.

“It was simply disappointing that there was no further development over the past three years,” McDuffie said. “I felt we needed new leadership right away.”

In five years at the helm, Wunder compiled a 36-101 record with the Panthers including an 8-19 overall and 5-11 in the Ohio Valley Conference this season, which placed them ninth in the 11-team league.

Before coming to Eastern, Wunder had successful seasons at Division-III Wisconsin Stevens-Point, Miami (Ohio) and Fresno State but never had more than eight wins in Charleston.

“When you have a high expectation level for yourself and you don’t meet those goals it’s hard to say exactly what happened,” Wunder said. “It’s kinda like when a student expects a 4.0 (GPA) and gets a 2.5.”

McDuffie confirmed Monday he informed Wunder two weeks ago she would not be retained for next season. Wunder and her players were informed of the news while they were still involved in the race for the eighth and final tournament spot in the OVC Tournament.

McDuffie stated he didn’t want the athletic department to release the official statement until Monday.

“We held back the official notice because they were still in contention,” McDuffie said. “I really can’t provide a good answer for doing it that way but I could argue both sides of the issue.”

McDuffie looked at the last three seasons under Wunder to evaluate her performance.

“I scrapped the first two years when she was trying to rebuild the program and needed to get new players,” McDuffie said. “After that, we still were not successful in our conference.”

Wunder made clear some of her concerns were part of the system she was involved in including hiring coaches and the competitive atmosphere of college athletics.

“The simple fact is we didn’t win enough ball games, and today in college athletics you gotta win period,” Wunder said. “Eastern wants to win conference championships and we couldn’t do that.”

McDuffie made very clear Eastern’s goal is to be a consistent power in the OVC and he will begin the search to find the coach to do so immediately.

“I think it’s a possible expectation to win conference championships, that’s certainly a realistic goal,” McDuffie said. “We fund women’s basketball similar to most of the teams in our conference.”

McDuffie will begin what he called a national search process to find a new leader of the program. The process will involve a search committee comprised of members selected by McDuffie himself. The members of the search committee will be announced soon but as of Monday members of the Athletic Task Force had not been contacted by McDuffie.

NCAA faculty representative Gail Richard and physical education professor Bud Fischer were some of the notable task force members not contacted yet.

“What will happen is that our search committee will bring its recommendations of six or seven to me,” McDuffie said. “The leader of the search committee along with myself will decide who of those six to bring in for an interview.”

McDuffie stated some of the qualities he has in mind for his new head coach.

“I want someone excitable, an excellent recruiter, can develop talent and obviously represent the university in a professional manner,” McDuffie said. “We do not have a preconceived notion what her or she should be.”

The leader of Eastern athletics did give an example of what he may be looking for.

“Let’s say we find somebody with documented success suppose a major Division I assistant and has won a Division II national championship, that person has big time experience and head coaching experience as well,” McDuffie said. “Is that the only type of person we’re looking for, absolutely not.”

Wunder did not have any regrets over the past five seasons at the helm and said she holds no bitterness toward the program in general. She is also unclear on her future plans as a coach in collegiate basketball.

“I think we weren’t as consistent as I would’ve liked to be over the past three or four years,” Wunder said. “I will be cheering for these great group players because they deserve the best.”

“I’m not really sure what’s next for me whether I explore some different options as a coach or non-coaching opportunities,” Wunder said.

Eastern will need to replace its three seniors this recruiting season but a time table was not given for finding a new coach.

“We are looking for the best person for the job and so we will continue to search until that measure is met,” McDuffie said.