PISCATAWAY, N.J. (AP) — Coming home to New Jersey this week was bittersweet for Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico.
She always looked forward to coaching in the Garden State as it would be a chance to see her family, including her dad, George.
Barnes Arico had around 100 family members and friends at the No. 7 Wolverines’ game against fifth-ranked Vanderbilt on Monday at the Coretta Scott King Classic, which Michigan lost 72-69.
She was expecting a lot again on Thursday night for a game against Rutgers. But one person was missing, George. He died on Nov. 1 after battling cancer and Parkinson’s disease.
“This week was harder than I thought it would be,” Barnes Arico told the AP in an interview Wednesday after practice. “I’ve come home a lot of times, but it’s like, OK, I’m in, I’m out. Like, you’re here for 24 hours, but when I’m here for like a long period of time, you feel like you’re here. People are here. It makes it a lot tougher.”
Barnes Arico said she had a similar feeling when her team played in Connecticut right before Thanksgiving in a tournament.
George had been a fixture at so many of her games during her nearly 30-year coaching career that included stops at Adelphi and St. John’s before she took the Michigan job in 2012. Her dad and stepmom lived on Long Island, so making those games was easy.
Getting to Michigan was a lot harder for her dad even before he was slowed by Parkinson’s disease a few years ago. The last time he was able to see her coach a game was when the Wolverines played at Harvard in 2024.
Barnes Arico recalled many years ago that her dad didn’t want her to get into coaching. She had been a teacher and he thought that there was no job security in coaching. After she coached her first game she was hooked.
“I remember him saying many years later that he was glad I didn’t listen to him about coaching,” she said laughing.
Before he passed away, Barnes Arico was flying back to New York a lot from Ann Arbor to see him.
“Every single day we had a day off. I was trying to by there, and I was trying to make my schedule around when I could go in and couldn’t miss a day practicing. And I said when he passed, was the first time in my career that I missed two days in a row.”
She coached the team’s season opener against Canisius a few days after he passed away before flying home for the funeral.
Barnes Arico was happy that one of her daughters, Cece Arico, had transferred to a school on Long Island this year and was able to spend more time with George before he passed away.
“She didn’t get to grow up around them so it was kind of nice,” the coach said. “She was there throughout the last few months.”
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