Monique LeBlanc, the head coach of women’s basketball at Merrimack College, sits down with us in this episode of the 35,000 Feet podcast and gives us insight into her journey as a basketball coach. She shares the highs of the 2019-2020 season as Merrimack moved to Division 1, her favorite travel experiences including a cross-country road trip, and what’s next for her and her team!

*Since the publishing of this podcast, Coach Monique LeBlanc has accepted the Women’s Basketball Head Coach position at Brown University

In this episode, we discuss:

• How this past season went for Merrimack College Women’s Basketball team (0:14)

• How Coach Monique got into coaching (3:02)

• Monique’s favorite travel experience (5:25)

• One thing that no one knows about Monique (9:51)

• Monique’s advice to athletes wanting to play in college (12:57)

• Monique’s next adventure (17:45)

2019-2020 Merrimack College Women’s Basketball Season Recap

Morgan: Tell us about the highs and lows of your current season.

Coach Monique: Yeah. There's been so many highs. I'll start by saying that Merrimack College announced, last fall, that we were be going Division 1 as an institution. So we already had Division 1 hockey at Merrimack and, now, all of the sports are Division 1. We play in the Northeast Conference, so this was our first season as a Division 1 basketball program. We had a great season in Division 2 last year, so we were looking forward to going Division 1 and seeing how we would do with a new set of challenges, but, also, it was unknown. So right now, we stand at 20 and 9. 

We are hoping to make a post-season tournament, but there's some rules around transitioning, so we are not allowed to play in our conference play-offs for the next four years. And that's definitely a challenge because as student athletes, they love the play-offs and March Madness and all of that, so unfortunately, we're not allowed to compete for a spot in the NCA tournament. But that's really exclusive even when you are allowed to compete, and so we are fighting hard for a spot in another post-season tournament, such as WNIT or the WBI. So we're proud of the product we have right now with 20 wins, and we think that's a strong enough resume to get invited to another post-season tournament, so we shall see. We'll be finding that out next Monday.

Morgan: Wow. Well, that's exciting.

Coach Monique: Yeah.

Morgan: So you do hear about a lot of schools going DI, and that's awesome how you're working around things. It sounds like you're putting in the work, so that's awesome.

Coach Monique: Yeah. It's been a great season, and it's been really fun seeing the players really support each other and come to practice every day ready to work and have high energy. They're just playing and as a coach, you have to love that. So I'm proud of the team, and my staff works super hard. They do a great job. Yeah. We're just really excited about where we're at and even more excited for the future.

Coach Monique LeBlanc’s Start in Coaching

Morgan: Wow. No, I'm excited for your team. How long did you say you've been coaching at Merrimack?

Coach Monique: This is actually my ninth season, which is crazy because, to me, I just started. So the time's really gone by quickly, and I think that's a reflection of ... It's just been a great experience and a fun ride so far. So I want things to slow down in moments like these where we're really in the midst of a great season but, yeah, I'm nine years in.

Morgan: Wow. Nine years. How did you even get to be a coach?

Coach Monique: Well, I was a college student athlete myself, a basketball player in Pennsylvania. And after college, I took a job at Prudential Financial. I was a math and economics double major as an undergrad, and that was kind of the next step there, working at the Pru. While I was doing that, I drove by this high school every day on my way to work, and I thought, "Let me pop in there and just see if they needed any volunteer help with their basketball program. I'd love to stay involved with the game that I love, and maybe they'll let me hang out at practice and help them out sometime." So chances are they were looking for a JV coach, and they hired me on the spot, so it was really cool. It didn't take me too long to realize that I was actually really enjoying my JV high school coaching job so much, and I wanted to make a career out of it.

So from there, I started applying to graduate assistant positions all over the country just knowing that, "Okay. Almost every head coach out there has a master's degree. I want a master's degree, anyhow, and I'm going to need it. So let me stay really open-minded, and I'll go anywhere." So I got a graduate assistant position at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, which is just an unbelievable town. Still one of my favorite places to this day and really introduced me to travel in the Southwest and the Northwest. Our conference spanned all the way up into Montana and Idaho and Washington and Oregon, so it was just a really great way to see that side of the country. That was the beginning of my coaching career. I bounced a couple places, and now here I am at Merrimack, and I'm actually from the Northeast, so it's kind of like being home.

Morgan: Oh, my gosh. I love hearing the stories and seeing how you got where you're at, and so I think that's so fun. I think it's cool that you got to go so many different places, too.

Coach Monique: Yeah. It has been really, really great. You and I were talking a little bit before, and I was saying that I've driven across the country a few different times. One time was just for fun after college. A good friend of mind from college and I decided to drive all around the country. We were on the road in our car for 33 straight days. The other times that I drove across the country were because of coaching moves, and so that's kind of life of a coach, especially younger in your career, and you bounce around a little bit. Yeah. Coaching has brought me to some pretty cool places.

Morgan: Oh, that is so cool. No, that sounds like a fun trip. 30-something days, that's crazy.

Coach Monique: Yep. We had a blast.

Coach LeBlanc’s Most Memorable Travel Experience

Morgan: What other memorable travel experiences have you had?

Coach Monique: Well, I mentioned living in Arizona and, of course, one of the wonders of the world is right there in the Grand Canyon. So I definitely really, I think, did a great job of making the most where I was and taking advantage of having the Grand Canyon right there, so a couple of really great trips in the Grand Canyon. I hiked rim to rim one time. My mother-in-law's husband, they were living at the Grand Canyon, too, believe it or not, because they're also from the Northeast, so it was really great. But he and I drove to the North Rim which, of course, as you know is in Utah.

Morgan: Yeah.

Coach Monique: We hiked, so it took us the whole day, but we hiked from the North Rim to the South Rim, where my in-laws were living. It was an unbelievable experience to be starting in Utah, and it was 28 degrees, and there was some snow on the ground to several hours later be down at the Colorado River peeling layers off trying to cool down. What a drastic difference in a few hours. It was beautiful. It was amazing to see the entire canyon that way.

Then another one of my favorite trips from living out there was hiking Havasupai Falls.

Morgan: Oh, beautiful.

Coach Monique: That's, ah, man, really neat experience. So that was neat because you start ... The top of the hike, you hike a mile and a half down. Then the next eight miles are just kind of flat, but you're weaving through this canyon. Then you come upon the town of Supai, where a Native American town is, and it's really neat. They've got a store, and there's a lodge and a school, and it's just really neat. There's a landing pad for a helicopter, and then a mile and a half later, you're at the falls. So it was a really unique trip. One that I'll always remember.

Morgan: Oh, that is beautiful. My dad always goes and I see the pictures, and I'm like, "Wow. That is on my bucket list." So I think that's so cool that you were able to do that.

Coach Monique: Yes. Oh, and the hike between the first falls and then, I believe, the second one is Mooney Falls. You kind of have to go through this rock tunnel, and then you scale down some iron, like a ladder, that's bolted into the rock wall, so it's a little bit scary, too, and exciting, so it's awesome. A big reward to get down to that waterfall.

Morgan: Oh, that sounds so fun. I know. Whenever I see the pictures, I'm like, "Okay. I have to go there." That is so fun.

Coach Monique: Love hiking. Yeah. Love hiking. Also, living in Flagstaff, the San Francisco peaks are right there, so Humphreys Peak is the highest one, and that ... So Flagstaff, for any listeners that aren't familiar, is at 7,200 feet elevation. Then Mount Humphreys is over 13,000 feet, so it's really high up there, but it's a really rewarding hike, and it was a really ... I've done that a few times just from living out there. 

Then out here, the Appalachian Trail runs right through a lot of the New England states, so there's some really great hiking out here, as well. Definitely have done some of the Presidential peaks here in New Hampshire. Yeah. I love hiking.

Morgan: Wow. Okay. I got to add these to my bucket list. Oh, I love that.

Coach Monique: Yeah. Let me know if you're ever out this way. I'll get you on some good ones.

A Lesser-Known Fact About Monique

Morgan: Oh, okay. That sounds awesome. Thank you so much. Oh, that sounds so fun. What's one thing that no one knows about you that you can share with us?

Coach Monique: Yeah. This is pretty funny. There's actually a women's national football league, like a professional women's football league. Talking about my first year out of college when I was working at Prudential, and then I was coaching JV basketball. It's a struggle for student athletes that are so used to playing college sports and having that structure and that competitive environment in their lives to all of a sudden just not have that. So I was home from work one day. It was a snow day, which is really rare. The stock market almost never closes. So I'm watching Good Morning America, and there's an interview happening with this woman who plays on the local team, the New York Sharks, and I had no idea that there was even a women's football league. So I just looked it up online, and I saw that there were tryouts coming up in a couple of months, and I was like, "Yeah." So to make a long story short, I played one year of women's professional football on the New York Sharks.

I still have all my gear. That was ... Hold on. Let me do the math ... 16 years ago, close to 17 years ago, and I still have all my football gear, and there's a part of me that feels like I still might play again sometime. But that's probably going to be pretty challenging to actually make happen because just being a Division 1 head coach, and I've also got two young kids. I have a four-year-old and an almost two-year-old, so finding time to do that would be pretty challenging at this point. But it was a great experience and such a great game. Yeah. Not a lot of people know that.

Morgan: Okay. That is so cool. I feel like I'm talking to professional women's football player. That's so cool.

Coach Monique: Well, you could do it, too. What's neat about it was ... I remember when I meeting my new teammates, it really went across the spectrum of backgrounds. There were some other former college athletes like myself, and then there were lawyers and moms and teachers, so lots of different backgrounds. I actually felt like it was a really cool opportunity for women that just ... Almost no women have a background in playing football, so it was kind of an even playing field for a lot of us. Pretty much, I think anybody could try out and have a chance at playing some sort of position on the team. Yeah. It's a cool sport, for sure.

Morgan: Wow. What in the world? Thank you for sharing that. That is something unique that I've never heard. I'm like, "Wow. I need to look into this women's league." Oh, that's-

Coach Monique: Yeah. What are the chances?

Morgan: I know. I've thrown a football with my brothers, but that's about it other than powderpuff in high school, so I'm like ... Well, thank you for sharing that.

Coach Monique: Yeah. That was most of our experience in football was just the powderpuff game of high school, so ... Yeah.

Coach Monique LeBlanc’s Advice for Athletes Wanting to Play in College

Morgan: Yes. I know. That's my extent, but I think that is so cool. If you're an athlete wanting to play for a team or university, what would your advice be for them?

Coach Monique: Yeah. I think that it's really important to find a right fit. And that's a term, fit, that us college coaches use a lot, but it's really important because ... I learned this from ... I was listening to a speech from a Hall of Fame inductee to the soccer program. This was a couple years ago.

Morgan: Uh-huh

Coach Monique: She was older, and she was recalling that years ago, when she was being recruited to Merrimack, that the soccer coach basically said to her, "I want to make sure that you love Merrimack as a college, not just Merrimack as a soccer team. Because on your worst day of soccer, I want to know that you're still going to be really happy about your choice to be a student here at Merrimack." And I thought that was a really great story and a good one to use when we talk about fit because we want ... Like this year, unfortunately, we had a couple players on our team that were out with injury. So for them, they're not getting to have their best experience on the floor because they're out with an injury, but hopefully they're enjoying being a Merrimack student, and that was the case. Both of these student athletes on my team that were injured, they're also really connected to Merrimack in other ways via different clubs and organizations that they're part of. 

So I think that's really important, finding a college that you love for the college itself, and then the fit being a program and a coaching staff that you think, "Okay. This is a style that's going to accentuate my skill set," and thinking really long about what type of experience are you hoping to have. So some players want to play just at the highest level they can play at, and maybe that means that they're not going to play that much, but they're going to be part of this team at a really high level. Other players say, "I want to play 35 minutes a game. Where can I go and do that?" So I think it's just important to really think about what your ideal experience is and making sure you find the right level, the right fit for you, so that hopefully you could just make a college decision one time and be really happy where you landed and have a great experience.

Yeah. I think we always say, "We don't want anybody to ever transfer from our program." So in the recruiting process, we're trying to be really transparent about what the experience would be like and give them a lot time with our players alone without us like, "Hey, go ask them the real scoop, the player experience." So for us, we really hope to nail it with our recruits, and we would never want them to come to Merrimack and say, "Oh, this wasn't how I thought it was going to be." So we try to be really transparent in the recruiting process and be honest with a player about the role we see them playing, you know?

Morgan: Yeah.

Coach Monique: Or what about their game is appealing to us? It's a lot to think about when we're recruiting players. We might really love this player, but then as a staff, we have to think about, "Okay. Do we already have four players in her position? As much as we love this player, there's no way all five of these kids in the same position are going to be happy." So it's things like that it's important for players to do their research and just see like, "Okay. Well, if I'm really motivated to play 35 minutes a game, what are the chances of that happening this year or in the next two years?" and that sort of thing.

Morgan: Yeah.

Coach Monique: Yeah. Doing a lot of research, asking a lot of questions, it's always a good thing.

Morgan: Yeah. That's true. You're only going to be a college athlete for not too long, so it's smart to make sure you're getting that education, too. Yeah.

Coach Monique: Absolutely. Yeah. That time flies by, and we definitely want to send all of our players out with a really strong degree so that they're ready for the next step of their lives, whenever that is.

Morgan: That's awesome. Well, it sounds like you're a great coach. I'd love to have you as a coach.

Coach Monique: I appreciate that. 

Morgan: Yeah. 

Coach Monique: I take my role as a coach really seriously. I always tell the parents of our players that we spend more time with their kids between September and May than they do.

Morgan: It's so true.

Coach Monique: That's the honest truth, right? We spend time with our players, sometimes, more than we do with our own children during the season, too, you know?

Morgan: Yeah.

Coach Monique: Everybody's making a sacrifice, and so I'm like, "We're going to be a family, and I'm going to take really good care of your kids," you know?

Morgan: Yeah.

Coach Monique: We understand how important our role is as their coaching staff. We are those adults in their lives on a regular basis during their college career, so ... Yeah. It's really an important job, an important role that we play.

Morgan: It is so true. Coaches have made the biggest impact on my life, I'd say. That's awesome.

Coach Monique: Yeah. That's really neat.

Coach LeBlanc’s Next Adventure

Morgan: What's your next adventure?

Coach Monique: Oh, my goodness. There are so many next adventures in my mind. I love adventure, and I love to travel. The next eminent one here is coming up going to the Women's Basketball Convention. It happens to be in New Orleans, which is a really fun city, of course. So heading there for that convention, but some other things on the horizon ... My older sister got married in Jamaica. She and her husband did a destination wedding.

Morgan: Oh, cool.

Coach Monique: A couple years later, we followed suit, too. My wife and I got married in Mexico, and so we were like, "Destination weddings are definitely the way to go." But they're thinking about doing a reunion for their 10-year anniversary in Jamaica, so we'd love to see if we could fit that in there. But I'm actually hoping, too ... Taking trips with your team abroad is a popular thing in college athletics if you can swing it. Obviously, there's a lot fundraising that goes into it and planning, but I think we're looking to, hopefully, take a foreign tour with our team, so that's an exciting trip to start thinking about that's on the horizon. We're hoping to provide that experience to our players once every four or five years and letting everybody get that experience.

Morgan: Oh, that's so cool. Do you know where you want to take your team yet?

Coach Monique: I have an idea of it, but in the slim chance that anybody might listen, I should probably not be too specific, but somewhere in Europe.

Morgan: Oh, that would be such a cool trip.

Coach Monique: Yeah. I've only been to Europe once myself. I've been to France, and it was awesome. But I know there's just so much more to see. So a lot of times, when I think about my next adventure, I think about friends and family of mine that are posting pictures from things they've done. My sister had gone to Greece and hit up a bunch of the different islands there, and it just looks amazing.

Morgan: Oh, so cool.

Coach Monique: Yeah. I've had former players that have been to Spain and England and Ireland, and so there's just so much to do over there that I haven't seen yet and that most of our team, they've also not been over there. So it would be a new and fun exciting trip for everybody.

Morgan: No, that would be so fun. Europe's so fun, and that would be awesome to take your team there. Yeah. Because you guys are D1 and-

Coach Monique: For sure. Yes. It's a pretty popular thing to do. And as a player, we never went to Europe, but we did go to the Bahamas, which was a really cool trip. Then as an assistant coach, I've been with teams that have gone to Mexico for some tournaments, so ... Yeah. It's kind of funny because even in my personal life, I think I've done a lot of different destination in the Caribbean, but that's where basketball had taken me previously, too, so it's kind of a coincidence there. Yeah. There's so much to see, and if college athletics can be a vehicle for our players to see some other countries, I think that's really neat.

Morgan: Sports give you so many different opportunities to see the world and grow. I think that's awesome.

Coach Monique: That's right.

Morgan: Well, thank you for sharing your trips and letting us get a little glimpse into your team. We're excited to see where your team keeps going.

Coach Monique: I appreciate that. Thanks for following us the rest of the way, and we're looking forward to it ourselves.

Follow Merrimack College Women’s Basketball

• Merrimack College Women’s Basketball Twitter

• Coach Monique LeBlanc Twitter

Podcast made in partnership with Acanela Expeditions

Theme Song - I’ll Just Be Me by Gravity Castle