Last season was a struggle for Syracuse women’s basketball. The Orange stumbled to an 11-18 record overall, and managed just a 4-14 mark in ACC play. Interim head coach Vonn Read was let go and Syracuse hired Felisha Legette-Jack.
FLJ joined the Orange after spending the last 10 years coaching Buffalo. Legette-Jack led the Bulls to four NCAA tournament appearances and made the 2018 Sweet Sixteen. She graduated from Syracuse in 1989. In her time playing with the Orange, she racked up Big East Freshman of the Year honors, as well as three all-conference selections.
The first move Legette-Jack made upon arriving at Syracuse was to hire Sue Ludwig as an assistant coach. Ludwig and Legette-Jack came to SU in 1984 and Ludwig was the point guard on the Orange teams in the late ‘80s. To date, she still ranks fifth all time in minutes and sixth all time in assists in the SU record books.
Ludwig joined Legette-Jack after spending the last 31 years as head coach at Westhill High School on Syracuse’s west side. Changing the culture was of the utmost importance to Ludwig and FLJ. The staff settled on a Orange, bedazzled, and blinged up hard hat given to one player after each victory to symbolize hustle and non-stat sheet related activities.
“It’s all about toughness, right?” Legette-Jack said. "It’s all about blue-collar, it’s all about the things that you can’t see that represent the win.”
At Westhill, Ludwig used a gold “W” chain. For FLJ, it was a lunch pail at Buffalo. Now that the two are reunited, the staff settled on the hard hat. The staff couldn’t find an all orange hat at the hardware store. However, that only stepped up the artistic touch. The hat was spray painted orange, is bedazzled, and features Syracuse decals taken from the football equipment room.
“The hard hat is what you want to do,” sophomore guard Georgia Wooley said. “You just want to go out there and do all the little things that go unnoticed that bring the team together and it’s cute too!”
Wooley won the hat in a January victory over Pittsburgh. However with three games remaining, Dariauna Lewis leads the team earning the hat three times. Lewis is SU’s top rebounder and the award just pushes her to go harder on the boards.
“We love rebounding, it’s a thing for us,” said Lewis. “Coach Jack always says it’s our drug, you don’t have to pass us the ball, we can get it off the glass.”
In year one under Felisha Legette-Jack, the Orange have already surpassed last season’s win total by five. But to find evidence of the shifting culture around the SU program, look no further than the bedazzled and spray painted hard hat, worn by one SU player after every victory.