Confidence, swagger: Purdue women's basketball coach Katie Gearlds' traits trickle down

WEST LAFAYETTE — A smattering of reporters are waiting outside Cardinal Court.

Players for the Purdue women's basketball team already have gone through interviews prior to the last month's first official practice.

Now everyone is waiting for head coach Katie Gearlds, who is fashionably late to her own scheduled media availability.

Gearlds arrives, smile in tow, saying hello to those she already knows and introducing herself to those she doesn't.

More: How Purdue women's basketball looked north to South Bend in bolstering of its roster

In West Lafayette, however, Gearlds needs no introduction.

She's a legend from the glory days of Purdue women's basketball and now begins her third season as head coach of her alma mater, a program on the rise under her guidance.

Gearlds is as authentic as it comes, whether the cameras are on or off, or even when there isn't a camera anywhere to be found.

The Boilermakers play with the same personality their head coach carries throughout everyday life — with confidence, swagger, competitiveness and fearlessness.

If you don't like it, so be it.

That's who Gearlds is and that's who the Boilermakers are.

"Who she is"

Amiyah Reynolds had college coaches giving her their best sales pitch during the recruiting process.

And then Reynolds had Katie Gearlds.

People pick up when you're being real with them and nobody is more comfortable in her own skin than Purdue's women's basketball coach.

What you see is what you get. Some like it. Some may not. But Gearlds is who she is in any circumstance.

"From the beginning, she’s acted the same from my first visit until now," said Reynolds, now a freshman at Purdue, which opens its season Monday at UCLA. "She hasn’t changed. Just because I committed, it hasn’t been like that. She has just been who she is. I haven’t had to adjust to anything."

Ask anyone on Purdue's roster.

They appreciate the realness of their head coach.

They like that Gearlds carries herself with confidence.

Swagger, they call it.

"What you see is what you get," Gearlds said, shrugging her shoulders before the season's first official practice last month.

It's what lured freshman Mary Ashley Stevenson, one of the top players in New York, to Purdue. It's what helped land highly-touted recruits Jordyn Poole, Kendall Puryear and Avery Gordon for the future and what has the current Boilermakers excited about the present.

Gearlds will casually drop curse words in everyday conversation and she genuinely seems as interested in getting to know people for who they are.

More: Purdue Women's Basketball - three keys to note before the season starts

Because who you, not who you pretend to be, is the best version of yourself.

"Who she is in front of the camera is who she is in the locker room who she is on the floor who she is off the floor," fifth-year senior Jenae Terry said. "Just us having that relationship that we can be ourselves with each other whether we have a down day or we have an up day, knowing that no matter who I want to be, I can be it.

"I play like I want to entertain the crowd. Her giving me the freedom to do so just because of who she is is just amazing."

"Free spirit"

Gearlds is an avid supporter of Purdue, once the star player for the program she embarks on a third season as head coach of.

Last season alone she coached a game in a Purdue Boilermakers baseball jersey. Another in a football jersey.

And once walked onto the court in a T-shirt with the acronym "BTFU" across the chest. The first letter stands for Boiler and the last letter for up. You can devise the middle two letters.

The Boilermakers carry much of the same carefree attitude as their head coach, but with the same burning desire to be great.

"She is just a free spirit and allows us to be who we are on and off the court," fifth-year senior point guard Abbey Ellis said. "She’s allowed everyone, whether you are a fifth year or a first year, to be who you are."

Who the Boilermakers are, who they've become and where they're going, seems to be back into the talk among the great programs in women's college basketball.

Climbing back into contention

Back in Gearlds' playing days, Purdue was a national powerhouse.

Indiana's 2003 Miss Basketball out of Beech Grove High School turned record breaking shooter for the Boilermakers and first round draft pick of the WNBA's Seattle Storm departed her alma mater knowing Purdue as nothing but a winner.

Slowly but surely, the program dipped until it seemingly fell off a cliff.

Some questioned the decision to hire Gearlds as Sharon Versyp's successor. Gearlds coached Marian University to the top of the NAIA Division II ladder, winning a pair of national championships.

But coaching in the Big Ten seemed like a couple coaching stops away from Marian.

More: Purdue Women's Basketball wins exhibition match 106-45

Athletic director Mike Bobinski was persuaded she could win at Purdue, likely by Gearlds' blend of genuineness and confidence, and made the hire anyway.

In just two years, Gearlds took a Purdue program on a downward spiral to consecutive postseason appearances, the WNIT in 2022 and to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2017 last season.

"When she is telling you that I believe in you and I know you can do this, it immediately resonates because you can see she did it," Stevenson said. "What more accreditation do you need?"

The almost overnight turnaround might be a surprise to some.

Not to those who know Katie Gearlds best.

Lakan Hasser-Smith, a former standout player at Lafayette's McCutcheon High School, was in the midst of her collegiate career when Gearlds was hired at Marian.

Hasser-Smith's skillset was running an offense. That was until Gearlds saw things differently.

"She basically pushed me out of my comfort zone," said Hasser-Smith, now Purdue's director of video and recruiting assistant. "She put me in different positions I didn’t think I could do. I originally started a point guard and she switched me over to a shooting guard. It was best thing for me."

Hasser-Smith is Marian's career scoring leader and helped lead the Knights to their first national championship in 2016.

Under Gearlds, Purdue has quickly climbed a similar arch to her time at Marian, where she went .500 in her first season and made the NAIA national tournament the next.

Not everyone is jumping on board with Purdue women's basketball just yet, but Gearlds is all in.

And that's real.

Her team knows that.

"I think that’s what life is about really, especially coaching in this day, being real and being genuine. Coaching is pure relationships," Gearlds said. "The X’s and O’s, everybody knows the game at this level. If you can have real intimate relationships with your team and your team buys into everything you’re saying. ... They know I am going to ask them to run through a brick wall, but I am running right through there with them. Maybe not as fast. I was never really fast. But I am right there with them every step of the way."

Sam King covers sports for the Journal & Courier. Email him at sking@jconline.com and follow him on Twitter and Instagram @samueltking.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Purdue basketball coach Katie Gearlds' traits trickle down on Boilers