Woodstock North’s Conroy leaves for NIU

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Joe Conroy used to spend summers watching many of the same girls basketball tournaments as Kathi Bennett.

Although they were adversaries, they struck up a respectful friendship. Bennett, the new Northern Illinois University women’s basketball coach, recently showed what she thought of Conroy when she invited him to join her staff and he accepted.

After two years as Woodstock North’s boys basketball coach, Conroy is returning to women’s college coaching, where he worked for 10 years. Conroy coached boys basketball at Woodstock High School for three seasons, and his teams posted a 28-58 record. He started North’s program in 2008-09, then took the Thunder to the varsity level this season. North finished 2-26 in its first year of varsity competition, although the school has no senior class.

“I got offered an amazing opportunity from a friend that I couldn’t pass up,” Conroy said. “Kathi had asked me a while back if I’d ever think about coming back [to college].”

Bennett is the daughter of former Wisconsin men’s basketball coach Dick Bennett. Her brother, Tony, is the men’s head coach at Virginia.

Conroy worked as women’s head coach at Illinois Valley Community College, then as an assistant at NIU, Eastern Illinois and Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He worked as the recruiting coordinator at Eastern and Milwaukee.

Conroy worked as Woodstock’s Inter-Related Occupation coordinator for students who work during school hours and receive credit. He moved to North as a coach but still worked at Woodstock. He had hoped to someday coach his sons: Ethan, 12, Mason, 11, and Porter, 7.

North athletic director Nick Kearfott posted the position Wednesday and estimated he had received more than 10 applications. However, there is no available teaching position, so the coaching job might have to be filled from within District 200.

“We haven’t set a timeline,” Kearfott said. “It has to be posted seven days. We haven’t appointed an interim coach yet. We hope to have someone in place before [the summer schedule] happens.”