“I always joke around that if we’re in a contest, I want to win. If I was on the court with your grandmother, I’m going to beat her, and I’ll apologize afterwards.”
That is the attitude that California University of Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame inductee and accomplished Duquesne basketball standout Darcie Vincent, and her competitiveness—evident on and off the court. Vincent was inducted Saturday alongside Roger Gordon (men’s soccer, 97’) and Kim Miller (softball, 09’). The Fairmont, Wv. native played basketball for East Fairmont High School, where her jersey is retired and hangs in the school gym. From there, she went on to play for then-head coach Catherine Kunz at Duquesne University.
While at Duquesne, Vincent played an average of 34.3 minutes per game over 108 career games, averaging 14.2 ppg, 4.3 rebounds per game, 5.13 assists per game, and 5.37 steals per game. She was honored by the Atlantic 10 in three of her four seasons. She currently ranks third in Duquesne’s scoring record with 1,538 points. In 1991, she was honored with the Alice Walton Mansmann Award at Duquesne as a player who embodies the four characteristics the award praises: dedication, leadership, scholarship and service. In 2000, Vincent became the first female inducted into the Duquesne Sports Hall of Fame.
“It [receiving the Alice Walton Mansmann Award] was a great honor when I was there. That was one of those moments again where you realize you got what you got,” Vincent said. “You get this plaque —I think they even did it at a game—and then afterwards when you read it, you realize [what is happening] and that family and your team really overwhelms you at that point. Even being the first female inducted into the hall of fame at Duquesne—that is a big deal.”
Vincent realizes her influence on other female athletes, taking a humble stance on her accomplishments.
“You realize you’re breaking ground for other female athletes,” Vincent said of her 1991 award. “In the beginning—I’m definitely not a person—even with this Hall of Fame—I’m not a person that goes out to get these things. What you’re lucky with is that who you are and how you play the game, or how you coach the game gets these things. You have to be aware of these things because you’re a role model.”
Before Vincent coached women’s basketball at Cal (Pa.), she served as head coach at Slippery Rock University, leading the The Rock women to the NCAA Elite Eight (1999-2000) in her four years of coaching. While at Cal (Pa.), she led the Lady Vulcans to eight consecutive PSAC championships, seven consecutive NCAA tournament appearances, three Elite Eight appearances and two Final Four appearances, in addition to winning six PSAC West titles and the 2004 Division II National Championship (35-1 team record). Vincent finished her coaching career at Cal (Pa.) with a 212-47 (.819) record and an 82-14 (.854) record in PSAC West play during her 2000-2008 tenure. She often refers to her Cal (Pa.) years as a “rare opportunity.”
“It was the mentality,” Vincent said of what set Cal (Pa.) apart from her other coaching experiences. “I [think that] every coach in the world should have this opportunity to coach for—it wasn’t just an athletic department philosophy.”
She likened the Cal (Pa.) school atmosphere to that of (UConn women’s basketball head coach) Geno Auriemma’s domination on the court.
“That was [Cal (Pa.)], that was everything about how academically, socially, it was in the community, and then in basketball,” Vincent praised. “They brought me there to win a championship, and that’s who they were, and that’s very rare. From the 1940s to 2015, it’s just a very rare opportunity to have the whole university come together with that type of mentality.”
While she was a student at Duquesne, Vincent earned a Bachelor’s Degree in business marketing and later a Master’s in business administration while serving as a graduate assistant. In following her dream of continuing her basketball career, Vincent turned down a $50,000 business-related employment for a $16,000 coaching position at Slippery Rock. Some, including her parents at the time, were dumbfounded.
“I took the Slippery Rock job and my parents—my mom was really like, ‘Are you nuts?’” Vincent said. “She was saying I needed to grow up, I can’t play my whole life and go take this job, and I said, ‘No, I want to coach.’”
As Vincent became more and more successful in her new coaching endeavor, the meaning of the word “coach” began to change.
“You’re a mother and you’re a best friend and you’re a counselor and you help these ladies go through so much and you help them grow,” Vincent explained of her title. “I spent the first few years [of coaching] very poor, but I was doing what I loved so much. It was that moment, it was the first time you walked on that court and you realized this is what I’m meant to be, this is why God made me, for these kids and for this game, and do this and never look back and then it gets in you.”
Vincent credits her large West Virginian—20-plus first cousins—family as her primary source of influence to her successes. As a girl who grew up around adults and playing sports every chance she had, Vincent took a mature view on the world at an early age.
“[My family] taught me that ultimately it’s the Christian side of things and that influence they brought my grandmother and grandfather were just wonderful people and my family was wonderful,” Vincent said. “Everything you did was for God and how that was done, and that was it. I really didn’t watch TV and say, ‘Oh, I want to play like that person,’ and back then you didn’t have female role models—it was still all Michael Jordan [who] was starting and Michael Johnson and stuff like that.”
Vincent has certainly changed that.
“When [you’re inducted into the Hall of Fame] as a coach, it really has little to nothing to do with you because of all those other players and the staff. You just sit there and you kind of put it together,” Vincent said. “I’m thinking of all of these players and I’m taking them with me. It’s not me—it’s every one of those players. The ones that didn’t score 20 points a game or didn’t get 30 minutes a game, but they practice really hard and they made us better. So as the coach, I think it has to do with you, I think it has to do with everyone of those young ladies that you coached and everybody you coached with. It’s really a little weird thing to grasp.”
