Women’s Basketball Head Coach Laura Harper to remain out until November, other coaching changes announced

By: Jake Shindel, Deputy Sports Editor

Towson Women’s Basketball Head Coach Laura Harper will miss the first several games of the 2023-24 season after Athletic Director Steve Eigenbrot announced on Friday that she will be out until Nov. 27. 

The second-year coach has been on administrative leave since May 19 and will be out for just over six months before she returns in November.

Harper played basketball at the University of Maryland, winning a National Championship in 2006. She was an assistant coach at several universities before becoming the head coach at Coppin State University for two seasons. Towson hired her after she won Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Coach of the Year. 

Harper did not respond to requests for comment by publication on Sunday. 

Not many details regarding Harper’s leave are known at this time, as the university does not discuss personnel matters. 

“This is a personnel matter,” a university spokesperson said in a statement. “As a result, there is no additional comment.” 

In her first season as head coach, the team earned a share of the regular season title in the Colonial Athletic Association and advanced to the CAA Championship game before falling to Monmouth.

In Harper’s absence, Eigenbrot announced that Christie Rogers has been promoted to associate head coach, and she will be the interim head coach. Crystal Kelly was initially named interim head coach on May 19, but she recently took a job as an assistant coach at Kentucky.

Kelly, women’s basketball’s associate head coach last season, is the second first-year assistant coach to leave Towson Women’s Basketball since May, with assistant coach Joe Glowacki leaving Towson after one year to return to the University of Maryland. Both left after Harper was placed on administrative leave.

Before Towson, Glowacki served as the director of recruiting operations for the University of Maryland’s women’s basketball team for three years before transitioning to the director of video for another three years. He will be the director of video for the 2023-24 season.

Kelly came to Towson from Bellarmine University, where she was an assistant coach for two years. Kelly is returning to the state where she was born and played collegiate basketball at Western Kentucky University.

Towson hired two people to fill the roles left by Kelly and Glowacki. Ka’lia Johnson is joining Towson’s staff as an assistant coach, filling Glowacki’s role. Natasha Holloway is joining as a special assistant to the head coach, a position filled by Rogers last season. 

Johnson was an assistant coach at the University of Richmond last year, while Holloway was a team manager for the Tigers last season before graduating in May. 

No Towson women’s basketball players have entered their name into the transfer portal by the time of publication, a source with access to the transfer portal told The Towerlight. 

Jake Shindel

Jake Shindel has been a member of The Towerlight since the fall of 2020. He has served as a writer, associate editor, Editor-in-Chief, Sports Editor, and now Deputy Sports Editor. He has also held internships with The Daily Record and Baltimore Fishbowl, as well as PressBox Online, the Baltimore Blast, and Towson Sports Network.