When Brenda Frese arrived at Maryland in 2002, she couldn’t have imagined this — signing a new deal that will keep the coach at the helm of the women’s basketball program through the 2027 season.
Back then, Frese wasn’t completely convinced of her own abilities, despite winning the 2002 AP National Coach of the Year award for orchestrating a turnaround at Minnesota. Frese was a “little girl from Iowa,” she said Tuesday, hired to lead a program with lofty ambitions at a university in which the men’s basketball team had just won a national title.
“Obviously,” Frese said, “the rest is history.”
Nineteen years after first stepping foot on campus as a fast-rising coach, Frese has won 500 games with the Terrapins, brought home a national title and won another AP National Coach of the Year honor in 2021.
Her first award helped bring her to College Park. The second helped keep Frese there for the long haul.
“I’m really proud of the … consistency that this program has been able to uphold,” Frese said. “I consider myself a consistent personality and person, and it means a lot to continue to hold this program at a really high level, because that’s where Maryland belongs.”
Frese began feeling more confidence on the recruiting trail early in her time at Maryland. That’s where she went toe-to-toe with some of the biggest names in basketball, such as UConn’s Geno Auriemma and Tennessee’s Pat Summitt — and occasionally won.
Frese convinced the likes of Crystal Langhorne, Laura Harper, Marissa Coleman and Kristi Toliver to join the Terrapins. Those future professionals were some of the first to believe in what Frese was building in College Park.
“When you kind of start recruiting kids and then being able to get them to Maryland over these national powers that had all won these national championships before we did at Maryland,” Frese said, “definitely gained confidence in that way.”
She gained even more once those players became the driving force in the Terrapins’ run to their program’s first Final Four in 2006.
“When you get to that national stage, with that kind of talent and those kinds of players, now can you coach?” Frese said. “You can recruit. You’ve shown that. Can you coach?”
Frese proved she could, securing Maryland its first national title with a win over Duke in Frese’s fourth year in charge. The Terrapins haven’t captured another, but Frese has kept the program in the upper echelons of college basketball.
Maryland has earned a bid to the NCAA Tournament in 17 of Frese’s 19 seasons. The Terrapins have made the Final Four three times, Elite Eight six times and the Sweet Sixteen nine times. She also has steered her team to six Big Ten championships in the seven seasons the Terrapins have competed in the conference, including a Big Ten tournament title in 2020-21.
Frese’s new six-year deal includes an additional one-year extension for the 2027-28 season. She said athletic director Damon Evans and deputy athletic director Colleen Sorem approached her with a contract offer last year, but they tabled discussions once the coronavirus pandemic spread.
Frese is proud of what she’s achieved so far, but she knows “when you rest on your laurels too long, you’re not going to be where you think you’re supposed to be.” She’s focused on what comes next with a team that returns several stars from last season’s Sweet Sixteen run.
Frese has already been in College Park for the long term. Her new deal ensures she’s here for the even-longer term, continuing the consistency that has marked Frese’s program since she first arrived with big dreams but self-doubt.
“I really was hoping that I could find a place that I could call home,” Frese said. “Just so blessed to be able to call Maryland home and meet my husband here and have our twins and to have been here for 19 years. That doesn’t always get to happen to coaches in our profession.”
• Andy Kostka can be reached at akostka@washingtontimes.com.
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