For new Stanford coach Kate Paye, following Tara VanDerveer is a tall task

STANFORD, Calif. (AP) — Kate Paye walked into the Stanford women's basketball office on a recent Friday morning moments after hanging up the phone with former star and Seattle Storm forward Nneka Ogwumike and who does she see but another former star in WNBA rookie Cameron Brink.

This is a regular day for Paye, being surrounded by such greatness, support and familiarity. And she understands how unique her situation is as the Cardinal's first-year coach with so many connections and logistics already firmly in place as she takes over for Tara VanDerveer.

No new staff to hire. No uprooting and moving her young family. No familiarizing herself with an entirely new athletic department.

“I think it’s a really unusual situation and a real blessing,” Paye said.

The 50-year-old Paye replaced retired Hall of Famer VanDerveer after years serving as coach-in-waiting and learning from the NCAA's all-time winningest coach in the men's and women's game.

“She got to learn from my mistakes for a long time, I think that’s a good thing,” VanDerveer said.

Paye's first season just happens to coincide with Stanford's debut in the Atlantic Coast Conference. That makes stability so much more important. Her assistants have been on the Stanford bench either as players, coaches or both — Tempie Brown as her associate head coach alongside Katy Steding, Erica McCall and Jeanette Pohlen. Heather Oesterle is the lone addition and she began her coaching career at Stanford in 2002-03.

“I think that we did everything at Stanford that we could do to transition smoothly for the players,” VanDerveer said. “We want the train to keep going down the tracks. Kate with her staff, Kate having Stanford connections within the staff, it is a new landscape so the fewer variables you have I think in some ways – not that it’s easy, it’s not easy at all – it’s easier.”

Across the country, others coaches have also had to fill big shoes, like Holly Warlick at Tennessee when the late Pat Summitt stepped away earlier than planned at age 59 after 38 years running the Lady Vols following a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

Someone will do the same when Geno Auriemma calls it a career at Connecticut.

VanDerveer turns up from time to time — she insists she has spent less than an hour in the gym since retiring — and she and Paye are in touch at least once or twice a week thanks to their “tremendous trust.” Born at Stanford hospital, Paye played for VanDerveer and won the 1992 NCAA title.

“She is very mindful. She wants us to have the space to get our thing going and she gets it," Paye said. "And she's also a great friend, and you just don't stop talking to a friend. ... She knows she's always welcome in the gym, welcome in our office. Even when she's not physically standing in our circle, she's there and she's kind of with all of us. The only thing I’m a kind of worried about a little bit and I tell her this, I'm a little worried about her during the games."

Now that the summer recruiting season is done and a regular cadence of practices and games approaches, Paye is eager to find a flow that allows her to return to her own routine.

Stanford took a foreign trip to Italy and played three games, and the tour also provided the team with 10 additional practices that were so beneficial for building camaraderie and continuity on a squad featuring five newcomers and also veterans thrust into different roles.

“I’m not into calling anything the Kate Paye era or way,” Paye said. “I just kind of think about it like kind of a new chapter.”

Tennessee was the first program to win eight women’s national titles, all under Summitt. Now, they are on their third different head coach since Summitt retired after the 2011-12 season Tennessee hasn’t been back to the Final Four since winning that last title under Summitt, in 2008.

The school tried to replace Summitt by staying in-house, turning first to Warlick who both played for and coached with Summitt for years. The woman seen as Summitt’s logical successor was fired after going 172-67 over seven seasons after barely keeping Tennessee’s streak alive as the only women’s program to play in each NCAA Tournament in March 2019. The Lady Vols lost in the opening round.

Tennessee then hired Kellie Harper, who helped Summitt win three straight national titles between 1996 and 1998. She went 108-52 over five seasons and guided the Lady Vols to consecutive Sweet 16 appearances before being dismissed following a loss to North Carolina State in the second round of the NCAA Tournamentthis year.

Now it's Kim Caldwell’s turn, as Tennessee moves away from the Summitt playing and coaching trees. Caldwell was hired after going 26-7 and taking Marshall to its first NCAA Tournament berth since 1997. She is 211-31 all-time with seven NCAA Tournament berths at her alma mater, Division II Glenville State, where she won the 2022 national title.

“I will never be Pat Summitt,” Caldwell said when introduced in April. “Nobody can, but I will strive every day to be somebody that she would be proud of.”

Paye waited patiently for her chance to take over on The Farm, turning down multiple opportunities elsewhere to stay put at Stanford, which opens the season outside the AP Top 25.

Paye considers herself to be fortunate. And she marvels at VanDerveer's remarkable 45-year career — 38 of those at Stanford. VanDerveer retired in April at age 70.

“First, I feel very well prepared, and that is thanks to Tara and the incredible mentor that she is,” Paye said. “I just have to pinch myself, our staff is outstanding. ... There's a lot of work to be done but thankfully we have great people who know what they're doing. We can just roll up our sleeves and get to work.”

AP Sports Writer Teresa M. Walker in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed to this story.

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FILE - In this Jan. 10, 2019, file photo, Tennessee head coach Holly Warlick directs players on the court during an NCAA basketball game against Kentucky in Knoxville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Bryan Woolston,File)

FILE - Marshall head coach Kim Caldwell looks on during the second half of a first-round college basketball game against Virginia Tech in the women's NCAA Tournament in Blacksburg, Va., Friday, March 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Robert Simmons, File)

FILE - U.S. women's basketball coach Pat Summitt is carried off by members of the team following their 85-55 Olympic gold medal win over South Korea in Los Angeles, Aug. 8, 1984. (AP Photo/Pete Leabo, File)

FILE - Tennessee head coach Kellie Harper shouts to her team during a second-round college basketball game against North Carolina State in the NCAA Tournament in Raleigh, N.C., Monday, March 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben McKeown,File)

FILE - Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer smiles as players celebrate her 1,202nd victory as a college coach following an NCAA basketball game against Oregon, Friday, Jan. 19, 2024, in Stanford, Calif. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar, File)

FILE - Stanford associate basketball coach Kate Paye calls out to players during an NCAA college basketball game against Oregon State Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024, in Corvallis, Ore. (AP Photo/Amanda Loman,File)

LONDON (AP) — It's been one year since the death of American hockey player Adam Johnson, whose neck was fatally cut by an opponent's skate during a game in Sheffield, England.

A man remains under investigation after being arrested on suspicion of manslaughter. Thousands of fans witnessed the grisly collision last Oct. 28 and there's video of it but authorities have not announced a decision about whether they will bring charges.

There could be a variety of explanations, from delays in digital forensic analyses to weighing the potential difficulty in proving criminality for “on-the-ball” incidents like this one.

Johnson and the Nottingham Panthers were playing the Sheffield Steelers in the Elite Ice Hockey League's cup competition. The Steelers were leading 2-1 in the second period. Johnson, a forward who briefly played for the Pittsburgh Penguins, skated with the puck into Sheffield’s defensive zone. As he pivoted to move inside, Steelers defenseman Matt Petgrave was skating toward him. Petgrave had another Panthers player in front of him and appears to have made contact. Then, Petgrave’s left skate elevates as the defenseman begins to fall and the blade hits Johnson in the neck.

Johnson, a Minnesota native who was 29, was pronounced dead at a local hospital. The Panthers had described it as a “ freak accident.” On Nov. 14, South Yorkshire Police arrested a man but have not released his name or age. The man was released on bail the next day and has been “ re-bailed ” several times — a formality while the investigation continues. In the British system, an arrest signals the start of an investigation — a decision on charges would come afterward.

Police try to determine the “state of mind” of defendants. Besides conducting interviews, that likely means examining phones or computers — and that's time consuming, even when defendants give passwords, which they're not obligated to do.

“There are massive delays in the British criminal justice system. Cases are taking a long time to be brought to charge," criminal defense lawyer Quentin Hunt told The Associated Press.

A report published less than two years ago said there was a backlog of 25,000 devices waiting to be examined.

“My cases are regularly being delayed by up to a year because of delays in getting back digital analyses of devices," Hunt said. "It is notorious within the British justice system, why cases are taking longer to be brought to a charging decision.”

Lawyers point to a 2004 court ruling that overturned the “grievous bodily harm” conviction of an amateur soccer player who seriously injured an opponent with an on-the-ball tackle. It said criminal prosecution should be reserved for conduct that is "sufficiently grave.”

In deciding if conduct reaches the criminal threshold “it has to be borne in mind that, in highly competitive sports, conduct outside the rules can be expected to occur in the heat of the moment," the ruling added. “The type of sport, the level at which it is played, the nature of the act, the degree of force used, the extent of the risk of injury, the state of mind of the defendant are all likely to be relevant in determining whether the defendant's actions go beyond the threshold.”

Prosecutions have been more common in “off-the-ball” scenarios such us punching, biting or head-butting.

An “on-the-ball” case that involved a rugby player being left partially paralyzed was handled in civil court. Natasha King wasn't criminally charged despite dropping her body weight onto Dani Czernuszka-Watts, who was in a vulnerable position as she was about to pick up the ball in a 2017 match.

Czernuszka-Watts won her civil suit in which a former referee testified after watching video of the game that in his 60 years in rugby he had "never witnessed such a reckless incident.” The civil court judge had found that King had acted out of revenge built up from earlier in the match.

“Against those hallmarks, the fact that the incident would likely be considered ‘on the ball’ may have saved the injuring player from concurrent criminal prosecution,” attorney Henry Goldschmidt wrote in his analysis of criminal liability in sports.

Petgrave's collision with Johnson was clearly “on the ball” because Johnson had the puck on his stick.

An incident in a hockey game in December 1995 led to a grievous bodily harm charge against Nicky Chinn, who played for the Steelers and was accused of purposely using his stick to injure an opponent's eye. A jury found him not guilty.

The case is likely an involuntary manslaughter investigation in which "there has to be an unlawful act or negligence,” Hunt said, but prosecutors wouldn’t need to prove the intent to kill or cause serious bodily harm.

Gross negligence manslaughter is still involuntary but more complicated: “You owe a duty of care to someone else, and you are negligent in conduct and that gives rise to death due to your negligence," Hunt added.

Voluntary manslaughter is more akin to a murder charge with clear intent to kill. The fact that Johnson wasn’t wearing a neck guard could prove legally significant.

“Given that it’s not up to him (the man under arrest) as to whether the other player wore a neck guard or not, then it will be, I imagine, quite difficult for the prosecution to prove to the requisite standard that he should be held criminally accountable,” Hunt said.

A week before an arrest was made, South Yorkshire coroner Tanyka Rawden issued a “ Prevention of Future Deaths ” report urging that neck guards be mandatory for all hockey players.

“In due course the inquest will consider whether the use of a neck guard or protector could have prevented Mr Johnson’s death. At this stage in my investigation however, I am sufficiently concerned that deaths may occur in the future if neck guards or protectors are not worn,” Rawden wrote.

The coroner's inquest was suspended in January, a procedural move because the police investigation was ongoing.

There has been debate about player protections. Britain's top league made neck guards mandatory last Jan. 1, two months after Johnson's death.

The next key date is Nov. 11, when the man who was arrested would need to be re-bailed again. Petgrave, a 32-year-old Canadian, has not made any public statements and his agent declined to comment. Police have also declined to comment.

Teams around the league began recognizing the one-year mark by holding 47 seconds of applause before games this weekend.

The Panthers plan to hold a jersey retirement ceremony for Johnson's No. 47 on Dec. 14.

AP hockey: https://apnews.com/hub/hockey

FILE - Manchester Storm players wearing number 47, Adam Johnson's number, pay tribute before the Ice Hockey Adam Johnson memorial game between Nottingham Panthers and Manchester Storm at the Motorpoint Arena, Nottingham, England, Nov. 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Rui Vieira, File)

FILE - Nottingham Panthers fans wearing number 47, Adam Johnson's number, before the Ice Hockey Adam Johnson memorial game between Nottingham Panthers and Manchester Storm at the Motorpoint Arena, Nottingham, England, Nov. 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Rui Vieira, File)

FILE - Pittsburgh Penguins forward Adam Johnson in action during an NHL hockey game in Columbus, Ohio, Sept. 22, 2017. (AP Photo/Paul Vernon, File)

FILE - Flower tributes for Nottingham Panthers player Adam Johnson rest outside the Motorpoint Arena before a memorial ice hockey game between Nottingham Panthers and Manchester Storm in Nottingham, England, Nov. 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Rui Vieira, File)