Meet CT’s only female high school boys basketball coach
COVENTRY — After the final free throws are taken and the sideline-to-sideline running slows to a finish, Lois Hasty gathers her team at midcourt late Thursday afternoon. The players, in their practice green, form a large circle. They hold each other’s hands.
Hasty talks about the upcoming days. The evenkeel speech complete, her players let out a cheer.
They are the voices of teenage boys.
Lois Hasty is the only woman to serve as head coach of a CIAC boys high school basketball team in Connecticut.
Taking over a Coventry program that had gone 1-13 in 2020-2021, Hasty led the Patriots to a 10-10 record in the regular season last year. A team that had allowed 80 points per game, allowed under 50.
Yes, there was a loss in the NCCC tournament to Rockville and in the first round of the CIAC Division V tournament to Portland. Yet despite losing their point guard Aiden Jeamel, one of the top players in the NCCC, to a torn ACL in the second quarter of the second game this season, Coventry carries a nine-seed into a state opening-round game at home against Hale Ray on Monday night.
Here’s the thing. Nobody around Coventry sounds surprised by Hasty’s success.
“When the high school position opened up, she jumped on it and the decision was a no-brainer,” athletic director Pat Cox said. “Lois is a respected colleague in the district and had coached the boys at the middle school level. She had some of these boys in sixth, seventh, eighth grade at (Nathan Hale). The bond already was there.”
The bond brought a 12-8 regular season before an NCCC quarterfinal loss to SMSA the other night.
Hasty is a small woman with a large academic resume. She was school psy
chologist at the Skinner Road School in Vernon. She became principal at Maple Street School in Vernon and, for a time, was athletic director at Rockville High. She moved over to the Coventry school district as Head Administrator at the Hale Early Education Center.
She coached her two daughters in basketball and continued coaching youth for years. Megan went on to play at Western Connecticut and Gordon College. Her older daughter Haley ran cross country and track at UConn.
“If anything, I hope it sets an example that other programs feel comfortable hiring a woman,” Hasty said. “I’m very proud of Pat Cox, (principal) Joe Blake and (superintendent) David Petrone for believing I could do it. Not seeing woman or man, they were going to pick the right person for the job. I think having seen me in action with the boys is probably why Pat didn’t hesitate.
“To me they’re still kids. They’re kids with different personalities and temperaments. You can push some of them and you have to treat some of them a little more gently. It’s just like the girls. They’re kids.”
Three of them, Wyatt Wendry, Mason Godi and Dylan Aloisa line up in praise of Hasty.
“All three of us started playing for her in middle season,” said Wendry, who transferred back to Coventry from East Catholic a couple of years ago. “We had some familiarity. It has been a good experience overall.”
The difference playing for Hasty than for male coaches?
“Honestly,” Wendry said, “not much different.”
Both Aloisa and Godi point to Hasty’s energy at practice.
“She has a winning mentality,” Aloisa said. “We feed off her energy at practice. She’s really good for this program. She has good intentions.”
“She’s not afraid of anything,” Godi said. “She motivates us to work hard. She’s always uplifting us. She doesn’t care about being the only woman in the state. She’s here to win.
“I was happy when she came to the program. We were at a low point. She has built us up every year. Coach thinks we can beat anyone. That’s what we believe, too.”
Hasty is from Anderson, Indiana. Her dad’s family was mostly from Fort Wayne. She comes from a family of teachers. Her dad was a pastor.
The family moved to Worcester when Hasty was young. She started high school in Central Massachusetts and finished at East Haven. She was a point guard at Clark University in Worcester in the 1980s.
“I had different coaches from high school and college and you take a little bit from all of them,” Hasty said. “If you are a good point guard you have to be able to see the game well and hopefully that translates into my coaching to anticipate things. It’s good you can get out there and demonstrate stuff, too.”
That’s when Hasty surprised me.
Asked what coach she modeled herself after and admired, she answered, “Being from Indiana, this is going to be controversial. I have studied a lot of Bob Knight’s defensive principals.
“My philosophy is definitely defense first. Defense and rebound. We drill it every single day. With any group, if we can manage the score, we can keep them in the game. Then play fast. My philosophy is to get early offense if you can. If not, have the discipline to set up and run things and have faith in our system.”
What’s Knight’s famous quote. Good basketball always starts with good defense.
“I’m a huge Hoosiers fan,” said Hasty, who has never met Geno Auriemma five miles down the road in Storrs. “Indiana. Basketball. It’s in your blood. I love what the women are doing there this year. Phenomenal. I think Mike Woodson is getting the men on track.
“I love watching the women coaches. Pat Summit, those kind of classic women coaches that were tough ladies, but also compassionate. Those are the kind of ladies I love seeing on the sidelines.”
Hasty said her relationship with the players’ parents has been good. No problems.
“Maybe it’s because I coached some of them in middle school, they know me,” Hasty said. “They know what I’m about. They know I’m demanding, but I love the kids. I don’t think I’ve gotten any pushback.”
Occasionally, trips on the road can be a tad different.
“Sometimes you feel it at the away games,” Hasty said. “Things will be said. Pat and I talked about that. I have to be tough enough to take that. It can be unusual for opposing teams to see a woman there. Hopefully I prove I can get the job done and it disappears.”
A milestone along that path could come Monday with her first state tournament victory.
“I think we can get some things done,” Hasty said. “Our point guard had a massive knee injury very early in the season. He’s a fantastic player. I’m super proud of this group for not folding. These guys have rallied. Everybody has had to step up and be a little more.
“We usually dial in on defense. If we have a good shooting night, I feel like we can make some noise in the tournament.”
About one-third of the head coaches in state girls basketball are women. Isn’t it about time Hasty is more than a party of one on the boys’ side?
“I had seen Lois work well with the boys with my own eyeballs,” Cox said. “So I had no apprehension. Best person for the job. From a cultural standpoint, I’d like to think we’ve moved or at least are moving toward an area where there aren’t too many roadblocks for qualified people regardless of their gender.
“Becky Hammon, what she did with the San Antonio Spurs, I think is just the tip of the iceberg at all levels. It’s like Bill Parcells used to you are what your record says you are. And Lois has done a wonderful job.”
The pipeline for high school women’s coaches isn’t the same as with colleges and pros. Top women players gravitate toward the higher levels. There needs to be grassroots involvement.
“I hope more parents get involved in youth sports,” Hasty said. “Women who have played in high school or college start coaching. Maybe they’ll coach the boys. Get involved that way.
“I hope if I can get the job done here that they’ll give more women opportunities.”
Lois Hasty is getting the job done.