The silence spoke loudly.
And clearly.
Vanderbilt women’s basketball coach Shea Ralph dislikes losing. Despises it. Hates it with a capital H-A-T-E-S.
So much so that she once went nearly two days without talking to her husband, and her top assistant coach with the Commodores, Tommy Garrick, because he beat her in a shooting contest at a YMCA.
“There’s lots of asterisks beside that win,” Ralph told The Tennessean before she, Garrick and their team headed to Fort Worth, Texas, to play Notre Dame on March 27 (1:30 p.m. CT, ESPN) in the Sweet 16 of the Women’s NCAA Tournament.
“I feel like the basketball was basically like the original ones they used … like a peach. It was a big fuzzy basketball.”
The two hadn’t known each other that long at the time. Ralph “wasn’t sure how competitive I wanted to be” because she really liked Garrick, and she wanted him to like her.
“I thought maybe if I lost … ” she continued, the grin on her face growing. “But he knows that’s not true, because I don’t let anyone beat me one-on-one. I didn’t talk to him because I didn’t like that.”
“We didn’t talk for two days, other than ‘Good morning, good night,’ ” said Garrick, who played 251 games over four NBA seasons with the Los Angeles Clippers, San Antonio Spurs, Minnesota Timberwolves and Dallas Mavericks. “She complained about the ball. She complained about the lighting. She is a ferocious competitor. I mark myself as one also.”
Their competitiveness has bled into a Vanderbilt women’s basketball program that is ranked No. 6 in the country in both the USA TODAY Coaches Poll and by the Associated Press and is vying for its first Elite Eight appearance since back-to-back runs in 2001 and 2002.
A program, led on the court by the nation’s leading scorer and first-team All-American Mikayla Blakes, that is 29-4 this season and is itching to claim its seat at the table with the nation’s elites.
A program led by Ralph − who has seven national championships (six as an assistant coach at UConn and one as an All-American player with the Huskies) − and her husband, Tommy.
Shea Ralph says ‘I do’ and ‘I won’t’
Shea Ralph said “yes” and “I do” to Tommy Garrick.
Shea Ralph said “no” and “I won’t” to Pat Summitt.
Wait, Ralph said she turned down a chance to play for Pat Summitt, the legendary Tennessee Lady Vols coach with eight national championships and an Olympic gold medal on her ledger?
“I did,” Ralph said matter-of-factly.
Ralph was 7 or 8 years old when her mother, Marsha Lake, asked a favor of Summitt, with whom she played with on the 1973 World University Games team. Lake, an All-American at North Carolina, wanted to know how good her daughter was. So she sent her to one of Summitt’s camps, where, each day, Summitt would plop down on a chair and watch Ralph play.
Closely watch her.
Moved up her in age groups each day until Ralph was playing against girls four and five years her senior.
Summitt’s report to Lake: Your daughter is good.
“I’m going to be going after her,” Lake remembered Summitt telling her.
Ralph had other plans.
And they didn’t include Tennessee or North Carolina, where her mother was a legend and where many assumed Ralph would play after the Tar Heels offered her a scholarship when she was a sophomore at Terry Sanford High School. There, Ralph was named USA TODAY’s National High School Player of the Year in 1996.
Nope, she chose UConn and coach Geno Auriemma, whom she would face in the Elite Eight should the Commodores and Huskies both win their next games.
“She really liked Tennessee,” Lake said. “But the way Pat was coaching, and it’s just Pat. … It was funny because Pat was yelling at her team that wasn’t doing drills right for the campers and then who does she go play for? Geno. Which is hilarious.
“She pretty much wanted to get as far away from Fayetteville, North Carolina, as she could,” Lake said. “It’s funny, because it’s the same thing here. She wants to go and forge her own path at a place mama is not known, and Mikayla has followed suit, which is just lovely.”
‘Let’s go play Legos’
When Ralph was hired for the job in 2021, one thing was for certain: She wanted Garrick by her side. She wasn’t going to take the job unless he was with her.
Problem was, he was the head coach at UMass-Lowell at the time, his ninth overall season as a head coach and third at the school. But the tug of Nashville proved too tempting for Garrick, who had been an assistant coach under Melanie Balcomb in the Commodores’ women’s program from 2009-2015.
Garrick decided the time was right. That he was going to go work with his wife in spirit and for his wife by title.
Not exactly conventional. Not exactly out of the ordinary for a couple whose relationship began on the college recruiting trail in gyms across the country. Whose relationship evolved into more than a friendship. Whose relationship includes way more than basketball.
Exhibit A: The couple’s 7-year-old daughter, Maysen, whom Lake regularly watches during games while she sits behind her daughter in the stands and watches at times when Ralph and Garrick are buried with basketball. Whom she took to the dentist on the afternoon of the NCAA Tournament second-round game against Illinois.
“They’re really just like co-workers.” Blakes said of Ralph and Garrick. “As soon as practice is over, we’ll joke with them.
“We love when ‘May’ comes around, but we always know she’s always watching us so we have to watch our actions. But I always want to be part of a family culture, and this was perfect. Coach Ralph values family heavily. She’ll bring her mother around as well. We all want to be around each other 24/7.”
“You can tell they have a good little system,” freshman guard Aubrey Galvin said.
And a good little girl in Maysen, who “runs this place” and, perhaps more importantly, helps keeps things in perspective for her parents and the Commodores’ players.
“Sometimes this (job) can get heavy,” Garrick said. “And then you have a 7-year-old blowing bubbles in the hallway and you have to smile or laugh. Or she’s coming up, tugging on one of our players, ‘Come play Legos with me.’ And they’re like, ‘You know what? Yeah, let’s go play Legos.’
“Our kids accept and appreciate it. It gives them a really great perspective.”
‘I don’t know where half my stuff is, but Tommy … ‘
Separating church and state isn’t as complicated as it may seem, Garrick said.
The two keep basketball talk to a minimum outside of the gym. Garrick, who grew up the youngest of eight children, including six older sisters, said her yin to his yang works perfectly.
“I couldn’t imagine having it any other way,” Garrick said. “I’m working with the person I love, the person I trust the most, my best friend. If I can’t work with her, who could I work with?
“Does it get a little dicey at times? Yeah. That’s why the court is 94 feet. There are times I walk down the other end and she walks away from me.”
Home is another story.
“I’m very focused and Type A, but I’m also kind of all over the place in terms of life,” Ralph said. “I’ll do laundry and then leave it in the dryer, or I won’t put things away a certain way. Tommy, he’s very particular. I’m not going to go as far to say OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) but … “
Ralph paused to sneak in a chuckle.
“‘May-May and I will move things on his desk or go in his cabinet in the bathroom and be like, ‘Let’s put the scissors here,’ and see if he notices,” Ralph said. “We get a kick out of it. And he does notice. It’s the funniest thing. I don’t know where half my stuff is, but Tommy … “
The message is loud. The message is clear.
Shea Ralph and Tommy Garrick get each other.
Paul Skrbina is a sports enterprise reporter covering the Predators, Titans, Nashville SC, local colleges and local sports for The Tennessean. Reach him at [email protected] and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @paulskrbina.
