Dave Sweet Stepping Down as Women’s BBALL Coach

Dave Sweet, Keuka's winningest women's basketball coach who guided the Storm to 179 wins and four NCAA appearances in 12 seasons, has stepped down as the women's basketball coach. He will remain Keuka's athletic director.

There’s a reason why Dave Sweet is the winningest women’s basketball coach in Keuka College history.

Sweet, who has also served as Keuka’s athletic director since 1984, has a knack for finding talented high school players, bringing them to Keuka Park and transforming them into hard-working and productive student-athletes, both on the basketball court and in the classroom.

His nose for talent doesn’t stop with his players, though. Sweet hired Katie Marcella, a wide-eyed 22-year-old assistant coach, back in 2008, hoping to develop another young talent to assist him on the sidelines.

Four years later, Sweet, the longest-tenured women’s basketball coach in Keuka’s history, is stepping down and turning over the program to Marcella, and he’s confident in Marcella’s ability to continue the strong tradition Sweet and his players have cultivated on campus.

“It’s a difficult decision for me, only because I’ve been coaching for such a long time, and I really do enjoy coaching basketball and working with the type of student-athletes we have at Keuka,” said Sweet, who compiled an impressive 179-97 record (.649 winning percentage) in 12 years leading the Green and Gold.

“There have certainly been many more highlights than lowlights in my career, so that’s been fun. But I think Katie is ready to step up and take over the women’s basketball program. We would be doing a disservice to the College if we didn’t allow her to step into that role. She did a great job leading this team during the second semester and you could see the signs that it was time for her to step into the head chair.”

Sweet will still serve as the athletic director for Keuka, overseeing the Storm’s 16 sports teams, a number Sweet helped grow by pushing for women’s golf, which recently completed its first season, and men’s volleyball, which will begin play this fall.

“I don’t want to lose my ability to work with our student-athletes,” Sweet said. “My number one role as director of athletics is to set the tone and the direction of the department as a whole, but because I was coaching, especially a sport that’s spread over two semesters, it was difficult for me to support my coaches. Now I will have more time to support and help them and make their programs better, which in turn helps our student-athletes.”