Fred Chimel
Fred Chmiel is ready to take the helm again.
The longtime NCAA Division I women’s basketball coach from Palmer has left his job as an assistant at the University of South Carolina for the head coaching job at Bowling Green State University.
This will be his first head coaching job since 2006. Since then, he’s been an assistant at Temple, San Diego State, Penn State, Minnesota and South Carolina, where he won two national titles on Dawn Staley’s bench.
Chmiel spent the last eight seasons with the Gamecocks and helped the team post a 247-32 record, including a 116-12 mark in the SEC.
You know it had to be the right situation for him to leave that comfort zone and Bowling Green looks like a good landing spot. The Falcons are coming off a 31-7 season and made it to the final four of the WNIT.
This is his fourth head coaching job, including two on the women’s side. He was head coach at two men’s junior college programs in California at Feather River College from 1995 to 1999 and at Lassen College from 1999 to 2005.
Palmer’s Fred Chimel and family. Photo by Bowling Green Athletics
Chmiel joined the pro ranks after that, beginning in 2005 when he joined the staff of the Charlotte Sting in the WNBA and then in 2006 when he was the head coach of the San Jose Spiders in the NWBL.
It was in Charlotte where he first formed a friendship with Staley, a star player who he coached in the WNBA.
“A relentless determination to be the best. That is who she is,” Chmiel told reporters. “I think I have got that inside of me and it’s why we were so compatible as coaches and why I worked for her for so long.”
Staley asked Chmiel to join her staff at Temple in 2006 and they coached together for two seasons. They reunited in 2015 in South Carolina, where they turned the Gamecocks into a national powerhouse with seven Sweet 16 appearances and two NCAA titles.
Fred Chmiel (left) and Dawn Staley (right) in 2017. Photo by Sean Rayford/AP/Shutterstock
“We strived to be perfect, probably not perfect at all, not even close to perfect,” Chmiel said. “But if you strive to do that every single day, every time you step between the lines that is the most important piece.”
Chmiel is a 1989 graduate of Palmer High.
He played two seasons for Feather River and averaged 12.5 points and 6.0 assists per game and earned first team all-conference recognition. He finished his college career at UAF, where he played for George Roderick.