The outdoors — and the woods, in particular — have always been the place that soothes her and reinvigorates her and reminds her of home.
She grew up in the tiny Florence, Wisconsin, two hours north of Green Bay and just a few miles from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Two decades ago, when she was a star player at Cedarville University, she told me about her home and how bears used to raid their backyard bird feeder. And how she’d regularly see deer and coyotes and she’d hunt and fish, chop wood and drive a tractor.
That recent day she left the women’s basketball offices for the WSU woods, she said she was enjoying the cold and the solitude as she tromped through the fresh snow looking for trails. And that’s when she sensed something:
“I was like ‘I feel like there’s a deer staring at me right now.’ And I looked to my left and there were seven deer hunched down together, just trying to stay warm.
“I thought of my dad — he passed away in 2016 — and how held be so proud of me now. He taught me so much — about coaching and leadership and mental toughness — and about the outdoors, too.
“He always said in the woods he could smell a buck.”
A couple of months before she came upon those huddled deer, she had another memorable encounter:
“I was walking back there, and I came upon a 10-point buck! He was just 10 feet away and we just watched each other for several minutes.”
Jimmy Hoffman — Kari’s husband and an end-of-the-bench helper at WSU games, a fixture at Raiders practices and especially a stay-at-home dad for the couple’s three young children — knows what those encounters mean to his wife:
“Those are her God moments, right there.
“Every now and then, she looks out her office window into the woods and she sees life back there. It’s pretty special, pretty magical really.”
Just as magical this season is when you look from the outside back through that window and see the Wright State coaches and players and the season they have put together.
Talk about special — the Wright State women are the surprise of the Horizon League.
After a great career — first as an All-American player and then as a very successful coach at nearby Cedarville University— Hoffman took over the WSU program three seasons ago following the departure of Katrina Merriweather, who went to Memphis and now leads the Cincinnati Bearcats program.
In five seasons as head coach, Merriweather went 113-47 and took two teams to the NCAA Tournament. But when she left, four of the standout players did, as well. Two followed her to Memphis, one went to Rice and Angel Baker, the team’s star, went to Ole Miss.
Many of the remaining players didn’t want to play for a new coach with a new system and balked at whatever Hoffman said. The strife was enough during the season that two players were dismissed and another quit.
Add in the toll of COVID on the mostly-unvaccinated team — the Raiders forfeited four games, more than the rest of the league combined — and you had a tough season all around.
The Raiders finished 4-23, which was more losses than Hoffman had in her four years as a Cedarville player.
She admitted it was the hardest year of her basketball life, but she believed in her approach, and she drew comfort and support from numerous sources, starting with Jimmy and her family, as well as from Kirk Martin, who’d coached her as a player at Cedarville and then had her on his Yellow Jackets staff until he retired and she got the job.
Midway through that initial WSU season the Hoffmans moved from Springfield to the same Fairborn neighborhood where Martin lived, so he buoyed her, as did her staff.
She said she also talked with Purdue Fort Wayne coach Maria Marchesano:
“She turned around four programs — Urbana, Walsh, Mount St. Mary’s and then Purdue Fort Wayne — and she said, that no matter what, year one is really hard, and year two is often harder because you expect to be good and you’re not.
“She said it’s usually not until year three when you see your work pay off. And even then, it’s not a guarantee.
“I just tried to keep a daily focus on doing the right thing and surrounding myself with the right people and I felt it eventually would pay off.”
Credit: © Courtesy Wright State Univers
Credit: © Courtesy Wright State Univers
The second year she added a dozen new players and the Raiders went 8-24, but there were some real successes.
The team finished No. 2 in the nation in made-three pointers and it won six of its last 11 games.
Hoffman and her staff continued the roster makeover this season after the three top three-point shooters all graduated and some other players transferred.
The Raiders added seven new players, both talented transfers and a pair of trumpeted freshmen who redshirted.
There also was the growth of returning players — most notably in guard Kacee Baumhower, who had transferred from St. Bonaventure midway through that initial 2021-22 season — and it’s all made for a stunning turnaround few outside the program expected.
This preseason — in a vote of Horizon League coaches, sports information directors and media who cover the league — the Wright State women were picked to finish seventh in the conference.
With two games left on the regular season schedule — they play Oakland on the road Thursday — the Raiders are in fourth place with a 16-13 record.
A month ago, Hoffman was given a three-year extension on her contract that had one year remaining.
She’s also a contender for Horizon League Coach of the Year, as is Detroit Mercy’s Kate Actor, whose Titans are 15-14 and 8-10 in the league and after going 5-25 overall and 3-17 in conference play last season.
Detroit lost 59-53 to Wright State a month ago at the Nutter Center and hosts the Raiders on Saturday.
‘The old days are gone’
After practice, Hoffman laughed when asked if her players appreciate her accomplishments as a player:
“I don’t think they really care or even know and that’s fine.
“I’ve had three kids. I’ve got a bad back. I don’t get out there and play anymore. I’m trying not to get injured. The old days are gone.”
Back then she was Kari Flunker, she was quite a player for Cedarville from 2002-2005.
A three-time NAIA All American and the American Mideast Conference Player of the Year as a senior, she led the nation — that’s both NAIA and all divisions of the NCAA, men and women — making 50.3 percent of her three-point attempts.
She scored 2,275 points and is in the Cedarville Hall of Fame.
Credit: Chris Snyder
Credit: Chris Snyder
After a brief stop as the director of basketball operations at Wisconsin-Green Bay, she became Martin’s assistant at Cedarville for six seasons and then took over as head coach, going 106-38 in five seasons, winning three conference titles and twice being named the league’s Coach of the Year.
When she was an assistant, she met Jimmy Hoffman, who had played basketball and soccer at West Liberty-Salem and had graduated from Wright State. He was a special education teacher and had helped coach varsity and junior high teams — boys and girls — in the area.
Although different personalities — he’s more laid back, she’s Type A — they had many common interests and eventually wed and now have two daughters and a son.
Finley is an 8-year-old third grader; Breslyn is 6 and a first grader; and Tripp is 4.
Like he does now at WSU, Jimmy helped Kari as a volunteer administrative assistant when she was at Cedarville, though he downplays it:
“I’m just a very fortunate tag along. I do what they need. I rebound, help load the bus and I clap a lot.”
Cedarville is now an NCAA Division II program and Hoffman said she never had a desire to run a D-I program: “I loved it at Cedarville. I thought I had the best job in the world.”
But she did contemplate giving the job up because the Yellow Jackets only can practice after classes, which meant she got home at 6:30 p.m., just an hour before the kids’ bedtime.
That’s when the WSU job — where practices are early, so she could see her kids more — suddenly opened.
Jimmy said he always thought she’d do well with a D-I program and Cedarville men’s coach Pat Estepp called WSU athletics director Bob Grant and suggested Hoffman would be worth considering.
“I always have a short list of coaches and I’d reached out to two of them (both D-I assistants) and they were ready to come to campus as our finalists,” Grant said. “But we invited Kari, even though none of us knew her and the deck was stacked against her.
“But — like no other interview ever before — she blew everybody away. It was unanimous. She was the perfect fit for our program. And she’s lived up to everything we thought she might be … and more.”
Believe in the process
After practice, Hoffman was sitting courtside when Tripp — who’d been playing with his toys and a video game at a table during practice — came up and with a whimper and extended the palm of his hand, which was all red.
He’d fallen and wanted his mom’s attention.
“It’s not blood,” Hoffman said. “That’s chalk or dirt….You’ll be fine. Go on and play now.”
That sounds like the same advice she’s often given her team this season. Believe in the process, you’ll be fine. Go play and good things will come.
Such thinking is why some players with areas ties — including the league’s leading scorer, Alexis Hutchison from Centerville who had starred at Malone; Franklin’s Layne Ferrell, who played at Akron; and Valley View’s Claire Henson, who was at Long Island University — transferred back here to play.
“It’s great to see local players want to come back and play for us,” Hoffman said.
“I saw it at Cedarville, too. Any local player who played for us overachieved. They were playing in front of their family, their youth team, their high school team, and their coaches. They had support. That comfortability made them play better. “
Hoffman admitted that after just 12 wins in the first two seasons, she has a new appreciation of victories, something she may have taken for granted at Cedarville.
Credit: © Courtesy Wright State Univers
Credit: © Courtesy Wright State Univers
The experience is enriched even more because her family shares it with her. While Jimmy’s parents, Jim and Jill — and sometimes his sister Jennie, too — are in the stands with the two younger children at games, Finley serves as the ball girl and Jimmy adds support from the bench.
And when the Raiders hit a three pointer — WSU is second in the league with 229 — Finley salutes it by stepping away from the bench and doing a celebratory cartwheel.
Away from the court, Hoffman still takes brief escapes outdoors.
Their home in Fairborn is near a pond and the other day she told me about the blue heron that sits outside her back door every morning. She mentioned the Canada geese and then brought up a special show:
“Today I watched a muskrat out there swimming and diving and just having a good time.”
That’s some of that magic Jimmy mentioned.
And you’ll find a lot more of it with her Wright State team this season.
They, too, are having a good time.
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