The Ball State University athletics department just lost one of the best things it had going for it.
Tracy Roller announced Wednesday she was resigning as head coach of the women's basketball team for medical reasons.
With her record - a stellar 118-73 in seven years - she was the winningest coach in Ball State's women's basketball history.
While in contract negotiations in March 2007, Roller said she felt as if she and the university were one.
"I feel like this program and myself are kind of intertwined," she said. "Ball State is me and I'm Ball State. I can't imagine being anywhere else."
In a department plagued with losses, failure and scandal, Roller's program stood pristine.
Good things don't come around frequently in the athletics department. Roller brought excitement to the program with three WNIT berths, single game record attendance of 4,711 and an increased average of home attendance overall. She helped sell more than 750 season tickets for the women's basketball team while sitting atop a billboard to spark interest in the program.
When the athletics department was riddled with drug policy violations, racism allegations and losing records, Roller and her program remained free of all the baggage that came with the department they were attached to.
You can't blame this one on Tom Collins. He and the university tried to keep her around. A year ago, she signed a $182,000 per year contract, making her the department's highest-paid coach at the time. But health complications overruled the university's efforts, and Roller decided to leave.
We've enjoyed Roller's successes and hope for her continued success, especially as she tends to her health.
Roller has said she supports interim head coach Lisa McDonald as her replacement, but has no official say in the matter.
McDonald seems to be the favorite to stick around and take the position, and Tom Collins, director of intercollegiate athletics, needs to make sure he's smart about this hire. The program's livelihood and progress depend on it.
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