She was the women’s basketball recruiting coordinator. She was responsible for scouting opponents, preparing practice and game plans, and working with players. She has no experience as a head coach but she’s sat 18 inches from Debbie Ryan, the Virginia head coach, on game days.

Is Angel Elderkin ready to make the jump to that first chair? She’s asking herself that very question, especially after Ryan resigned in March, ending a 34-year coaching career at Virginia. But 18 inches can seem like 18 miles when you’re looking for that first opportunity.

It’s that time of year when newly opened jobs throughout college basketball need filling. Search committees are formed and names are added to lists, only to be ultimately crossed off.

Maine announced the members of its search committee Tuesday. You would suspect someone in Orono already has a short list that only will get longer before it gets smaller.

Elderkin should be on that list. What, that name doesn’t ring bells? Think back about 13 or 14 years to another of Gary Fifield’s teams at the University of Southern Maine. Joanna Brown played then. So did Julie Plant, now the head coach at Division III Regis College, and Tracy Libby and Mandy King, now the head coach at Washington & Lee, another Division III program.

On the bench, waiting for Fifield’s finger to point to her, was a reserve guard from Rhode Island named Angel Elderkin.

All ears, all hustle, just waiting for an opportunity. After USM she enrolled at East Tennessee State for a masters degree in physical education and exercise science. She joined the basketball staff as an assistant. She was an assistant at Siena for four years.

She moved on to Tennessee, working for Pat Summitt for two years before Ryan and Virginia beckoned.

She’s been a head-coach-in-training for more than 10 years, six at the sport’s highest level. Is she ready? You would think so. She has asked friends their opinion on the Maine opening. She would take a pay cut but you can’t put a price tag on opportunity. She should be on the lists of other schools looking for head coaches. Maine might very well have competition.

Keith Cieplicki has been out of sight and maybe out of mind. He has a job but it’s no longer in basketball. The coach who guided Vermont to three America East regular-season titles and one trip to the NCAA tournament left for Syracuse to turn its women’s Big East program around. After three seasons and a 28-55 record, he resigned in 2006.

He started Shadow of the Dome Ministries in 2010, helping the homeless and in the words on his mission statement, “the poorest of the poor.” He speaks to different groups, from sports teams to church youth, encouraging them to seek and serve God. Some close to him say he might be ready to return to coaching. He accepts challenges. Could he be added to the list?

Think of a former Maine player. Not from the Cindy Blodgett teams. Not from the Rachel Bouchard teams. Go back 30 years to when Mari Warner of Saco played for Eilene Fox in the early 1980s.

She coached the University of Albany women for 20 years, overseeing a rise from Division III to Division II to Division I. Twice, in 1986 and 1992, she was named New York’s college coach of the year. She’s back in Maine, now coaching basketball at Falmouth High.

Like Cieplicki, she’s been away from college basketball, detached from the recruiting scene. Which isn’t to say networks can’t be rebuilt.

Three names and I wasn’t searching. Someone from the Siena women’s basketball family emailed me with Elderkin’s name, still impressed with her time there six years ago and knowing her connection to USM and Gary Fifield. In a phone conversation, someone in the America East community brought up Cieplicki’s name. This newspaper highlighted Warner’s background and return to her native state just last summer.

Selling Maine to a promising or experienced coach will be difficult. It still goes back to recruiting talent and character.

Some forget that when Joanne McCallie recruited Blodgett, she thought she had the gold to attract more gold. Jamie Cassidy came. And Amy Vachon. To McCallie’s frustration, she couldn’t get more to push Maine basketball even higher.

The search committee members will have their list soon enough. They’ll be checking it more than twice.

Staff Writer Steve Solloway can be contacted at 791-6412 or at: ssolloway@pressherald.com