Title: After a Season Starting With Loss, Women’s Basketball Coach Darnell Haney Ends on a High Note

After the women’s Big East championship game on March 11, Darnell Haney sat in the locker room with his head in his hands.

Lee Reed, Georgetown’s athletics director, had just announced that Haney was in talks to become the head coach of the women’s basketball team. He had been leading the Hoyas since the death of former head coach Tasha Butts in October 2023. 

When Reed announced the news, the team rushed Haney, huddling around him, cheering, clapping his back. He kept his head bowed, even as the clapping died down, and wiped away tears.

Haney isn’t typically a stop-and-smell-the-roses guy. But that moment was the first time he felt the magnitude of his unexpected rise to head coach, of the sweat and tears and loss his team had fought through to get here.

“It just hit me a whole bunch of things that I had been through, and we had been through as a team,” he said. “It was beautiful. It is beautiful. I was proud of our young women. I was proud of our staff. Just an amazing job.”

It was a high note to end a season that began with loss. Two weeks before the first game, Coach Butts, who was about to begin her first season with the Hoyas, died of breast cancer at age 41.

Haney, then the associate head coach, took the reins and led the team to their first Big East championship game in the program’s history. They finished the season with the most wins in more than a decade.

“These young women gave our alumni, our fans, this administration, this staff, everybody something to be proud of. Our women went through all of that. This is what Georgetown is about.”

An Unexpected Shower Call

A year ago, Haney didn’t expect to work at Georgetown. He’d just spent five seasons as the head coach at Jacksonville University, and was looking for new coaching gigs in Florida. He even tried to get his assistant a job with Butts.

Instead, Butts reached out with a counteroffer: Would he want to come visit Georgetown? Tour their practice facility? It was a big decision for Haney. He’d have to uproot his wife and three kids in Florida for this job; his daughter was about to enter her senior year of high school.

But after visiting, Haney was sold. He began working as the associate head coach, recruiting and training during the summer.

Right before the team’s first official practice in September, Butts held a Zoom meeting from her hospital bed. She told the team she was taking a leave of absence. Many team members got emotional on the call, Haney said. He thought he and his staff would hold down the fort until conference play, and then Butts would be back.

A few weeks later, he remembers missing calls while in the shower. Tasha had passed. He called a meeting to break the news to the players. The team was supposed to practice that afternoon, but instead, they made tribute posters to Tasha, posters that line the walls of their practice gym and ones they still touch before every training session to honor her. 

In the wake of the news, Haney remembers thinking it was time for him to step up. 

“These young women need you. The staff need you. I had staff crying. They didn’t know what they were going to do. They had families,” he said. “So put your big boy pants on. Let’s roll. I’m a big believer and I think God doesn’t put you in a situation that you can’t handle.”

Winning ‘Little Things’ First

Haney did step up. The team attended Butts’ funeral in Georgia on Nov. 4. Two days later, they played their first game against the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. They won, and they won the game after that.

Along the way, Haney outlined his vision, one that carried on Butts’ legacy. He wanted to make Georgetown the best place to play in the country, not just in terms of stats, but in terms of a positive culture. He wanted to make these underdogs winners.

“I’m like, ‘do you understand what it takes to win? When I’m walking in practice, I’m seeing your jersey’s not tucked in. Your shoes aren’t tied, you’re not ready to win. When you walk and talk like a winner, that’s when you win,’” Haney said.

“You don’t win during the game. You win in the process. You win with the little things.”

He also emphasized two team mantras, “earned never given,” and “Tasha Tough,” inspired by the former head coach and what the Hoyas shout before every game.

“We want to be the tightest and toughest team in the gym every night. Can you withstand a run that another team is going to make? Can you withstand a call that a ref is going to make that you don’t agree with? Can you have a coach pass away at the beginning of the season and still persevere and be able to get and do the things we’re able to do? That’s toughness.”

Earned never given is the same way Haney sees his role. He spent the year away from his family, staying up till 3 a.m. watching film, not knowing if he’d be head coach. He fought hard for the team’s wins, to instill a culture of toughness and love. And in doing so, he feels like he’s here for a reason.

“I think that’s what the good Lord has put me here for: to help and to show people how to get through and get around adversity. I just feel like that’s why I’m here,” he said.

Team Captain Graceann Bennett (B’23, G’24) described Haney, a former algebra teacher, as a “wicked smart” educator who loves to help people “learn and grow and be better than when they came in.” She also said that he embodied the team’s mantra of Tasha Tough.

“For us, [Tasha Toughness] was the duality of being able to be powerful, strong, forceful, energetic and stubborn, and also compassionate and vulnerable and open and trustworthy and loyal,” she said. “Coach Haney embodied that because he gave us the space to grieve while also holding us to the standards that Coach Tasha set in the first place.”

Georgetown ended its season in the inaugural Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament (WBIT). The unseeded Hoyas won their first game against second-seeded Washington (64-56) and ultimately lost to third-seeded Tulsa (61-73).

Haney’s looking ahead. He wants the program to be nationally recognized, one that makes “deep runs in the NCAA Tournament.” Their success comes at a time as women’s basketball enjoys its own rise in ratings and success.

“I’m looking for big things from our program and our young women. And it starts with me. It starts with our recruiting. It starts with these young women, making sure they buy in and do things the Georgetown way.”

A Bright Future

Back in the locker room after the head coach announcement, Haney got up from his chair and called the team into a huddle. 

“Thank you,” he said. “Tasha Tough on 3. 1, 2, 3. Tasha Tough!”

Afterward, he and Bennett stepped out for a press conference. Bennett broke the news that Haney and Georgetown were in talks.

“I am so elated and overjoyed for the future of the program and just so grateful that I have this opportunity to learn from him for the year,” she said, tears welling up.

“There’s much more to come for Georgetown’s women’s basketball with Coach Haney as head coach.”