Throughout her tumultuous final season, former NIU women’s basketball coach Carol Hammerle started to wear down both physically and mentally.

For a coach that put together 21 consecutive winning seasons at Wisconsin-Green Bay, losing started to become all too familiar, leading to her thoughts about stepping down during the season.

The Huskies 7-21 campaign this season dropped Hammerle’s record at NIU to 80-120 and her career record to 536-346.

The season opened on a sour note with a loss to Missouri that set the tone for the season that included losing streaks of five and nine games.

“I can’t name a particular time during the season, but I just knew that I got to the point where I was too tired and exhausted to continue,” Hammerle said. “I’ve been coaching for 32 years and it was time for me to step down.”

The 56-year-old coach retired March 8, and though she’s not ready to pack up and head to Florida, she isn’t entertaining the thought of returning to the bench either.

Hammerle said that she would “probably not” listen to any offers for her services and declined to comment on whether she had been contacted about another coaching job.

“I’m not going to coach again,” she said. “I’m still taking care of odds and ends here, and talking with [new coach] Carol Owens.”

Owens, 37, played at NIU from 1985-90. She ended her tenure as the top assistant at Notre Dame when the Fighting Irish lost to Arizona State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Monday.

“I think that it’s a great hire for NIU,” Hammerle said. “[Owens] was a great player and and she was one of the first alums to show support for me and I will never forget that.”

Hammerle added that she feels the Huskies are in good shape for the future.

“It was a struggling program when I took over, and I think that it’s definitely a better program now with a talented group of girls.”