Colby College hires Adrienne Shibles as women’s basketball coach
Adrienne Shibles speaks to Bowdoin College players during a January 2020 practice. Shibles has been hired as the women's basketball coach at Colby College. Shibles coached Bowdoin from 2008-21 and was a 1,000-point score at Bates College. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer)
One of Maine’s most successful basketball coaches will return to the sidelines this year.
Colby College announced on Thursday it had hired Adrienne Shibles to coach the women’s basketball team. It is the first coaching job for the Maine Basketball Hall of Famer since 2023, when she stepped down as head coach at Division I Dartmouth College after two seasons. She was the associate director of athletics at Bates College in Lewiston the last three years.
“I’ve missed coaching,” Shibles said. “I’ve had a really great three years here at Bates, but I’m excited to get back on the sidelines at Colby. For me, coaching is about working with the students and developing students, and I haven’t really had the opportunity to do that as an administrator.”
Shibles, a Knox native, is 424-212 in his career. She takes over the program from Chenel Harris-Smith, who is now the director of athletics and enrollment at The Woodward School in Quincy, Massachusetts. Harris-Smith went 71-76 in her seven seasons at Colby.
Colby is a member of the New England Small College Athletic Conference, where Shibles has had her greatest success. Shibles began her coaching career as an assistant at Colby in the early 1990s under Carol Anne Beach, whom she credits as an early mentor, along with legendary Colby men’s basketball coach Dick Whitmore.
“I used to sneak into Whit’s practices,” Shibles said. “He would write papers on the sport and leave them on the printer, and I would make copies for myself. I would study everything that he put out into the world, whether it was with his team or with those writings. It definitely feels full circle.”
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Shibles is the winningest coach Bowdoin women’s basketball history, leading the Polar Bears to 11 NCAA Division III tournament appearances from 2008-2021.
“It’s going to feel a little weird going into Morrill (Gym at Bowdoin) and be on the other side of the bench, and Alumni Gym (at Bates), although I have walked into Alumni as the enemy before,” Shibles said. “It’ll feel a little strange this time around.”
The Polar Bears reached the national final twice under Shibles, falling to Amherst in 2018 and Thomas More in 2019. Shibles finished 281-68 at Bowdoin, a winning percentage of 80.5 percent.
“Adrienne is a proven winner, a tireless mentor, and a true leader in Maine basketball history whose track record at the highest levels of Division III speaks for itself,” Colby Athletic Director Amanda DeMartino said in a news release. “Her exceptional ability to recruit and develop elite student-athletes, paired with her deep alignment with Colby’s values and vision for excellence, makes her the ideal leader for our program.”
Colby finished 13-11 last season and missed the NESCAC tournament.
“I’ll be deep in the film over the next few weeks, thinking how I can best put this team in a position to be successful,” Shibles said. “But, really, it’s about the student-athletes first, seeing what traditions they want to keep and moving the program forward in a positive way.”
In 2021, Shibles was hired at Dartmouth, leading the Big Green to a 5-49 record over two seasons. She was the head coach of the women’s basketball team at Division III Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania from 1996-2005, leading it to an NCAA tournament appearance in 2001.
A graduate of Mount View High School in Thorndike, Shibles was a standout at Bates College, where she scored 1,005 career points. Last season, she was able to watch her daughter, Elsa Daulerio, join her on the school’s 1,000-point scoring list.
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Tagged: bates bobcats, bowdoin polar bears, Colby Mules
Dave Dyer is in his second stint with the Kennebec Journal/Morning Sentinel. Dave was previously with the company from 2012-2015 and returned in late 2016. He spent most of 2016 doing freelance sports. More by Dave Dyer
