Aston’s Journey Started In Arkansas

LITTLE ROCK — Karen Aston walked out of the tunnel in Verizon Arena and made her way onto the court.

Dressed in burnt orange slacks and a white blouse, she acknowledged the small crowd sitting behind her team’s bench as it rose to greet her. She smiled and waved as she made her way to her courtside seat.

As a young girl growing up in Bryant, where she was the star player on a state championship basketball team, Aston probably never thought she’d be wearing the colors of the reviled Texas Longhorns. That was in 1982, back when Texas and Arkansas were still bitter Southwest Conference rivals.

Yet here she was, throwing up the Horns and singing “The Eyes of Texas.”

Aston wasn’t just wearing the colors, but she was coaching the Texas women’s basketball team as it prepared to take the court against longtime rival Texas A&M in a battle of nationally ranked teams in the SEC-Big 12 Challenge.

Many of those in the crowd were former players and friends from her home state. A few spectators threw up the Hook’Em Horns hand gesture, then quickly dropped it. Friends or not, these were still the Longhorns after all.

“It’s nice to see friends that I haven’t seen in a really long time,” Aston said after the game. “I had some former players here who I haven’t seen in years. And they have kids now, so it’s been a while since I’ve seen them.”

The paths coaches take is often filled with twists and turns, and Aston’s road has certainly been a winding one. Before reaching Austin, she made a number of stops in places like Vilonia, Fort Smith, Waco and Denton, Texas.

While her address has changed frequently, one thing has always been a constant wherever she unpacked her bags — she has always been successful. She won a state championship as a player at Bryant, she won a state title as a coach in Vilonia, and now she’s poised to perhaps achieve her ultimate goal — winning a national championship on the collegiate level.

With one-third of the season in the books on this December day, Aston’s team is ranked No. 3 in the country and already owns three wins over teams ranked in the Top 5 after its 67-65 victory over the Aggies.

Always A Winner

Aston learned early that winning does not come without a price, and that price is outworking your opponent. She credits her high school coach in Bryant for instilling that work ethic.

“I just feel like my roots are here, and my high school coach, Tom Webb, was probably my biggest influence,” she said after her team’s shoot-around the day before taking on Texas A&M. “He was probably the biggest influence in my career.

“Hard work trumps everything. That’s what Coach Webb instilled in me early in my career at Bryant. If you worked hard every day, you could accomplish anything you want to. I fed off of that.”

With a high school state championship under her belt, Aston set off for the next phase of her career, first at Ouachita Baptist in Arkadelphia and later at Arkansas-Little Rock, where she graduated in 1987. Her career goal was to become a head coach, and Vilonia offered her that chance right out of college, along with a host of other duties.

She admits that first job was a little daunting.

“It was pretty scary,” Aston said. “I coached seventh through 12th (grade) basketball, track, cross country, and they gave me the keys to the bus. I got my license out in the football field parking lot.”

Aston spent six seasons at Vilonia from 1988-93. Her final season was capped with a 36-1 Class 2A state championship, but even before that, the wheels were set in motion for the next phase of her career.

She longed to take the next step into college coaching, even if it meant taking a huge leap in faith, not to mention a huge cut in salary.

A Chance Meeting

In the 1980s, women’s college basketball didn’t enjoy the fanfare it gets today. There were just a handful of colleges that were consistently successful on a national level, and Louisiana Tech was in the group.

Then Louisiana Tech coach Sonja Hogg was someone Aston looked to as a mentor.

“When I played, Louisiana Tech was it,” Aston said. “So I was familiar with who she was. And I knew who coach (Leon) Barmore was. So when I was at Vilonia, she spoke at an all-star clinic. We met there, and I remember talking to her and saying, ‘OK, I’ve been a longtime fan. Would you ever consider coming out to speak to my players?’

“So the year before we won state, she came and spoke to my team. She kept her word and came out to Vilonia and spoke to them.”

Aston’s success at Vilonia opened other doors, including a job at Fort Smith Northside. It also led to more contacts in the coaching ranks, including getting to know a coach at tiny Stamps High School named Rickey Smith.

Smith and Aston were both involved in helping with Arkansas Tech coach Joe Foley’s summer camps. Foley is now the coach at UALR, and Smith is one of the state’s all-time great girls basketball coaches at Northside with multiple state championships. By that time, Hogg had left Louisiana Tech for Baylor.

“We had worked a few camps together,” Smith said. “That summer we were working a camp at Tech and running a defensive station, and we were both wound pretty tight and getting after them a little bit. Karen said, ‘Hey, I’ve applied for a (graduate assistant) job at Baylor and if I can get it, I’m going to resign.’

“I said, ‘Karen, you’ve only been at Northside a year.’ But she said, ‘You know, these jobs don’t come around very often.’”

Aston promised Smith she would put in a good word for him to take over at Northside.

“I told her, ‘No, it’s too late in the summer and I’m not really interested,’” Smith said.

Aston got the job at Baylor, and Smith took the job at Northside after more prodding from Foley.

“It’s worked out for everyone,” Smith said. “She took a tremendous leap of faith, and she’s worked her way up from the very, very bottom.”

Learning At Every Stop

As a successful high school coach, Aston could have continued at that level and continued to win titles. But the lure of the college game was an attraction she couldn’t turn away from.

“Once you get that taste of what it’s like because you have players that get recruited, then you start seeing what that’s all about,” she said.

Aston spent two seasons as a restricted earnings coach at Baylor before taking an assistant coaching (and much higher paying) job at North Texas. From there, she joined legendary Texas coach Jody Conradt’s staff as an assistant coach and stayed for eight years.

Her connection with Hogg came full circle in 2006 when she left Texas to join Kim Mulkey’s staff at Baylor. Mulkey was a former Louisiana Tech star player and assistant coach, and led Baylor to the national championship in 2005.

After two seasons at Baylor, Aston finally got the break she’d worked so hard for, when she was hired as the head coach at Charlotte. Over four seasons, she compiled an 86-47 record and led the team to postseason tournaments all four seasons, including an NCAA Tournament appearance and a WNIT Final Four. She later returned to North Texas for one season before Texas came calling to be its fourth head coach in the program’s history.

The time Aston spent at Texas proved invaluable when women’s athletic director Chris Plonsky was seeking a replacement for Gail Goestenkors in 2012. Aston was familiar with Texas from her years as an assistant, and already had relationships with many Texas high school coaches. She struggled her first season with a 12-18 mark, but last season she guided the Longhorns to a 22-12 record and the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

This season Texas won its first 10 games with milestone victories against No. 1 Stanford, then No. 4 Tennessee and No. 4 Texas A&M.

“It’s taken a lot of work from my staff and players, just a full commitment to get Texas back where it belongs,” she said. “We’re not there yet, but we’re on our way.”