Linda Cimino
Episode 155
17 JAN 2022
She is in her fourth season as the head women’s basketball coach at NCAA Division I St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights, New York, a Franciscan and Catholic college. She had previously spent four seasons as head coach at Binghamton University. Prior to that she’d spent eight years as the head coach at a Catholic-Dominican school, Caldwell University, where she was also the Associate Director of Athletics and Senior Woman Administrator. She has also held roles as assistant coach at Adelphi University, head girls’ varsity basketball coach at Calhoun High School, and head coach at Queensborough Community College. From 2016 to 2020 she served a four-year term on the NCAA Women’s Basketball Rules Committee. In 2019, she was inducted into the Rhode Island Interscholastic League Hall of Fame. As a student-athlete her name continues to appear in the record books in numerous categories for the Adelphi University women’s basketball program. In high school she had been All-State in both basketball and softball.
Notable guest quotes:
“The best thing my mom ever did for me was baptize me in the Catholic Church and provide me with a strong sense of faith.”
“As a person who is a giver (what St. Francis did) really hit home with me, that less is more, and you don’t need a lot of worldly possessions — you can get through and survive with less.”
“All the people that I’ve worked for have been very high-quality people. Almost all of my bosses have been Catholic, even when I worked at a state university, I worked for a Catholic athletic director who I was able to talk about faith with and connect with that way.”
“I was able to really… get in touch with my religious side and it is interesting because I do remember at one point my sister and a couple of friends said, ‘When did you get so religious,’ almost like it was a bad thing.”
“We all get distracted, but God is forgiving and that’s what we have to remember.”
“I think sometimes people are nervous to talk about their faith or their religion. They think that somebody might judge them or look at them differently. And so, it’s like a stigma they’re trying to get around. And I think that being somebody with my platform I’m able to share that that’s okay. It’s okay to communicate and talk about this stuff.”
“In the summer of 2017 I had had a pretty tough year. I had some adversity happen and I was talking to somebody about a pilgrimage, and I was in my office and booked a flight for the next day and just flew to Italy, on my own… I flew out to Rome and landed and remember taking the bus down into Vatican City. I stayed at an old rectory right outside St. Peter’s Basilica.”
“I was sitting at Mass in some gorgeous cathedral in Savannah, Georgia, and I remember saying to my friend, ‘I want to go to Mass in every state.’ … Then, of course, because I’m competitive and I’m a coach… I had to challenge myself to do it in one year.”
“Obviously we have an obligation to attend Mass on Sundays or Saturday nights. But I find that people who attend daily Mass are really deep in their faith and are really looking and receptive to receiving the message. And I definitely found that I like daily Mass a lot and I got a lot out of daily Mass. It was more thought provoking for me.”
“I actually had my mom and then one of my girlfriends and her mom and we went out to Fatima in Portugal, and we were able to go there and pray and essentially be pilgrims… We definitely had a life-changing experience and moment there.”
“We were fortunate enough to get tickets to a Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica where Pope Francis was and then listen to him and his address. It was just an unbelievable opportunity and experience.”
Related link:
Linda’s bio on St. Francis College website
