Story by WV MetroNews

 

In April, Cody Gilmore was putting plans in place for his fifth season as the women’s basketball head coach at Salem University. The Harrison County native was leading a Division II program about fifteen miles from where he grew up in Clarksburg.

 

Meanwhile at the University of Delaware, a new new head coach was hired to lead a program that won the Colonial Athletic Association Tournament and advanced to the NCAA Tournament a month earlier. Gilmore met the new head coach at UD, Sarah Jenkins, years earlier at a coaching convention.

 

“We became fast friends. It became a running joke between the two of us when she asked why I didn’t have a D1 job. I would joke back with her, ‘Well, I guess I need the right program to get hired. So why don’t you get a job?’ She helped me with a couple opportunities that I turned down because they weren’t right for me and my family,” Gilmore said.

 

A few conversations and a campus visit from Gilmore and his family led to an offer to be an assistant coach at the Division I school.

“When she got this position, I wasn’t really thinking she was going to hire me. She reached out to me asking to talk. We came up here to play an exhibition game during COVID. I assumed she wanted to play another one. She said, ‘No, I want to talk about the job’. I met with her, brought my family and they fell in love with the place.”

 

Gilmore was officially hired in mid-April. He is now one of four full-time coaches with an extensive support staff.

 

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