July 17, 2001
LAS VEGAS - The UNLV women's basketball team has added Pat Charity and Brooke Ingalls as assistant coaches for the 2001-02 season, head coach Regina Miller announced on Tuesday.
The duo joins Miller and assistant coach Staci Schulz in completing the team's staff for the upcoming season. Schulz was promoted to a recruiting coach while the new hires fill vacancies left by former assistants Kristin Cole and Brenda Pantoja, both of whom left to pursue other coaching opportunities.
With nearly 30 years experience as both a player and a coach, Charity will fill the second recruiting position, while Ingalls, a former player for the Lady Rebels, will serve as the on-campus recruiting and film exchange coach.
Charity comes to UNLV after one season as the head coach for the Birmingham Power of the National Women's Basketball League. She guided the Power to the first NWBL Pro Cup where the Power fell to the Atlanta Justice, 90-75 in the league's title game.
Prior to her stint with the Power, Charity was an assistant women's basketball coach at the University of Alabama for three seasons (1997-2000), and was the head coach at her alma mater, Western Michigan University, from 1990-97.
A 1981 graduate of WMU, Charity played four seasons for the Broncos under coach Fran Ebert. In 1977, she was represented the U.S. at the Summer World University Games in Bulgaria. After exhausting her eligibility in 1981, she played professionally in Italy for a year before returning to WMU as an assistant coach.
"Pat is a great catch," Miller said. "She has a tremendous amount of experience and has really developed a reputation for herself as a hard worker and a dedicated recruiter. She knows a lot of people out there, both coaches and recruits, and will really help us in the recruiting picture."
Ingalls begins her coaching career after having completed her playing career at UNLV last season. A four-year letterwinner for the Lady Rebels, the former team captain spent three seasons as a player under Miller and started 26 games over that span.
Earning her bachelor's degree in communications from UNLV last spring, Ingalls was a two-time Academic All-Mountain West Conference selection.
"I believe that Brooke exemplifies what it takes to be a Lady Rebel," Miller said. "She was truly committed to our program and philosophy and helped us continue to climb to the next level. She is a valuable asset because she knows the philosophy that is in place and can communicate things to me within the system as well as bringing in ideas from a player's perspective."
