COLORADO SPRINGS — In seven years as Valor Christian’s head coach, Jessika Caldwell’s morphed the school into a Colorado girls basketball power. The Eagles have won three titles, including this year’s Class 5A crown in dominant fashion on Sunday.
It’s a budding dynasty that Caldwell, a former Coronado standout, nearly didn’t build.
“Before I took the Valor job, I was ready to walk away from coaching and try to figure out what life was like outside of basketball, because I had just had my second child,” Caldwell said. “College coaching with multiple children is a challenge, and after our second was born it felt like a lot, so I thought about stepping back for a little bit and exploring other opportunities.”
But Caldwell found a perfect fit at Valor, where she’s been able to balance family (she now has three kids) and basketball while also focusing on faith, which is central in the 39-year-old’s life. Aside from the 153-25 record she’s earned on the court, Caldwell works part-time at the school as the Eagles’ athletic chaplaincy coordinator.
Prior to seven seasons at Valor, Caldwell coached as an assistant at Colorado Christian for five seasons and as the head coach at CU-Colorado Springs for four years. Caldwell (née Stratton) was just 23 years old when she took over the helm for the Mountain Lions, when the ex-Baylor star walked away from a promising professional career overseas to begin coaching.
“I feel like I could have played longer, but there was the opportunity to come home and start coaching back in Colorado Springs, and it was the right thing to do,” Caldwell said. “It was the right time to retire, and ultimately that decision led me to my husband, who I met playing pickup basketball.”
Playing for the Sparta Praha Basketball Club in the Czech Republic, Caldwell followed up a stellar career at Baylor (four-year letterwinner, two-time team captain and 2003-04 Big 12 Sportswoman of the Year) with a promising rookie season in which she averaged over 17 points per game.
But if you ask longtime Baylor coach Kim Mulkey, Caldwell made the right decision to get into — and stay in — coaching.
“I can’t tell you that I’m surprised (by Valor winning another title),” Mulkey said. “She’s a person who played the game the right way, she played it hard, she was knowledgeable. You knew (in college) she was going to make a great coach. And as good of a coach as she is, she’s a better Christian woman.”
A day after the Eagles beat Regis Jesuit 67-42 in the championship game – Valor’s fifth straight double-digit victory in the 5A tournament – Caldwell and players from all levels of her program were on a plane to Eutaw, Alabama, to do local service. There, the team will help out around a local church, put on basketball clinics and do other forms of outreach.
