A day after Karen Blair was announced as the new head women's basketball coach at Georgia Tech to succeed Nell Fortner, who announced her surprise retirement last week, Blair met with the media for her introductory press conference and the official start of a new era on Monday.
After being welcomed into the Shah Media Room at McCamish Pavilion by "Buzz," the Georgia Tech Cheerleaders and the Georgia Tech pep band playing "White and Gold" followed by the fight song "Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech," Blair, director of athletics J Batt and Georgia Tech president Dr. Angel Cabrera made their way to the podium for remarks and to answer questions.
Batt opened the festivities with some introductory comments and thanks to the entire athletics staff as well as the Georgia Tech Athletic Association board. He also thanked the student-athletes that were there who he said he asked for "a little bit of time and some trust" over the past week. Batt said his goal was to find some "certainty" for those student-athletes and to find the "best possible leader for the program," which he believes they have done in the hiring of Blair.
Blair also talked about the retirement of Fortner, which he described as a "surprise." He described Fortner as one of the classiest people he's ever been around.
"(Fortner) means a ton to me personally and I know to many in this room," said Batt. "I will miss Nell Fortner. I will miss Nell Fortner."
Batt said because of that retirement decision by Fortner, they were forced to step into a search quickly, and they were looking for three things in that search..."a person with a track record of success at the very highest level, someone who has a plan and someone who would be a great fit for Georgia Tech both athletically, personally and academically for our student-athletes."
Batt said during the interview process it quickly became apparent that Blair was the person they were looking for to fit all those criteria. He went through a little of Blair's resume, including being on staff at Maryland for three Big Ten titles, NCAA Tournament berths each year she was there, being the national assistant coach of the year and being a part of the staff at Maryland that one 80 percent of their games.
"She has a plan. She's well-equipped to execute in this new environment," said Batt. "She was directly involved in not only recruiting, as a tremendous recruiter, but also involved as the person that dealt with NIL, planning for the new rev share environment and has all the necessary contacts to execute on that plan."
Batt went on to talk about Blair helping Maryland land four top-20 recruiting classes with two in the top 10 and having the necessary contacts on the recruiting front and in the college basketball world to build "an excellent staff to move forward quickly in this new environment."
Batt then talked about how great of a person Blair is, saying that they did their homework with a lot of "digging and reference-checking" and she ...
