I got my dream job once.

After years of toiling and succeeding in the world of newspapers, even running my own sports section, I was at a low point in life when an incredible opportunity came for me to work at ESPN. Less than six months after punching in for my first shift at the Worldwide Leader in Sports, I was laid off — disillusioned just a smidge by corporate media, upset that I was a long way from home and eager to find a new challenge.

I don’t pretend to know what Chelsea Lyles went through during her first season as the women’s basketball coach at Florida Gulf Coast University and definitely won’t pretend to do so here. But I do know she was the most qualified choice to take over when Karl Smesko left the program two games into the 2024-25 season for his WNBA dream job – as head coach of the Atlanta Dream.

Which is why my puzzlement echoed that of many onlookers when Lyles suddenly stepped down from her new FGCU post less than 48 hours after coaching the Eagles in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

What wasn’t known until the following Monday morning — seven days later — was that Lyles followed Smesko to the Dream. All that remained in her wake back in Southwest Florida was a nine-sentence quote in a release sent out by FGCU the Monday after the Eagles lost to Oklahoma 81-58 in the NCAA Tournament. I reached out to Lyles twice during that week via text message to no response, which is perfectly fine and certainly understandable.

But in that period, without Lyles offering explanation why she one day was talking passionately about her maiden team and getting on the recruiting trail to reload the Eagles for the 2025-26 season, and another day handing in a brief, two-sentence resignation letter, having barely unpacked from March Madness, a lot of questions remained unanswered.

Lyles played at FGCU from 2008-10, before joining Smesko’s staff, first as a graduate assistant, then as an assistant coach in 2011 and later as an associate head coach starting in 2018. There is no doubt that she was groomed for the post. Smesko routinely allowed Lyles to coach a game by herself, taking the No. 1 assistant role to let Lyles helm the clipboard and argue with the officials.

And in my season working internally at FGCU in 2022-23, we prepared for the possibility of Smesko departing for a job opening at Pitt to the point that both a new online biography for Lyles and a press release announcing her ascension were live and ready to go on my monitor.

So when the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream came calling for Smesko just two games into the 2024-25 season, Lyles was quickly and seamlessly installed as just the second women’s basketball coach in FGCU history. That was the plan.

Smiles, photos and handshakes at half court during an official introduction with new FGCU athletic director Colin Hargis came and went. Lyles quickly got to work on the business of college basketball, doing so admirably — winning 25 straight games, going 18-0 for an ASUN regular season title, winning the ASUN Tournament and going 30-1 before losing to the Sooners.

That’s a 93.8% win rate in a rookie coaching season, for those keeping track. And with the pedigree Smesko cultivated in her sails, it appeared Lyles was poised to keep FGCU’s Raining 3s persona going for years to come.

Until it all went away. Speculation swirled right away that Lyles was headed to the Dream to reunite with Smesko as his assistant, a reality that became apparent the following Monday. The revelation that Lyles never ended up signing her FGCU head coaching contract, operating as the head coach while still under her associate head coaching contract that expired March 31, instead of in the first year of a five-year deal running through 2030, made it seem that Lyles planned on a one-and-done campaign at Alico Arena and a Smesko reunion in the W all along.

That’s all speculation, but we do know that the only two women’s basketball coaches FGCU has ever known are now in Atlanta; the assistant coaching staff is scattering to new gigs around the country; and the 2024-25 roster is largely either graduating or transferring in the wake of all this. Whomever takes over now post-Smesko/Lyles will find a program in theory, but in reality just a bunch of empty lockers and offices.

And Chelsea Lyles, a bright coaching star who in many ways saved a championship season this year for the FGCU women’s basketball program? She is gone from that spotlight just as suddenly as she arrived — walking away from what appeared to all to be her dream job.

Gulfshore Sports with David Wasson airs weekdays from 3-5 p.m. on Southwest Florida’s Fox Sports Radio (105.9 FM in Collier County) and streaming on FoxSportsFM.com.