by Daniel Johnson
April 12, 2025
Hayes was most lately an assistant coach at Rutgers College, the place she helped lead that program to the Nice Eight within the Ladies’s Nationwide Invitational Match this previous season.
Alabama State College employed Johnetta Hayes, a two-time Southwestern Athletic Convention Coach of the Yr, to switch Freda Freeman-Jackson after she retired following a 27-year teaching profession at ASU.
Based on Sports activities Illustrated, Dr. Quinton T. Ross Jr., Alabama State College’s president, praised the hiring of Hayes in a press launch.
“The Alabama State College Hornet Nation is thrilled to welcome Coach Johnetta Hayes as the brand new head coach of our ladies’s basketball group,” Dr. Ross stated. “Coach Hayes is a confirmed winner a two-time SWAC Coach of the Yr who brings championship-level expertise, a relentless drive for excellence, and a ardour for creating student-athletes on and off the court docket. Her management will energize our program and encourage greatness in our gifted roster of younger ladies. We’re assured that with Coach Hayes on the helm, Woman Hornets basketball is poised to rise to new heights. Let’s go, Hornet Nation!”
Alabama State College’s Vice President and Director of Athletics Dr. Jason Cable is slated to formally introduce Hayes as the following head coach of Alabama State’s ladies’s basketball program on April 15 on the Hornet Stadium Lounge.
Hayes was most lately an assistant coach at Rutgers College, the place she helped lead that program to the Nice Eight within the Ladies’s Nationwide Invitational Match this previous season. Hayes’ succession of Freeman-Jackson makes her solely the third head coach in this system’s historical past.
At Rutgers, Hayes labored primarily with facilities whereas additionally serving because the Scarlet Knights’ Defensive Analytics Coordinator, a task Hayes was suited to as a former star middle at Rice College.
Hayes had a profession 12 months throughout her junior season within the 2002-2003 season when she earned First-Staff All-WAC honors en path to main the Owls in scoring, rebounding, blocked photographs, and area objective proportion whereas additionally rating sixteenth nationally in blocked photographs per recreation that season.
As a head coach, Hayes compiled an 83-24 document in convention play at Texas Southern College and an general document of 115-74 throughout six seasons because the Tigers head coach from 2013-2019. Whereas at TSU, she led this system to 2 regular-season SWAC titles, one SWAC match title, one NCAA match look, two WNIT appearances, and one WCBI look.
In 2019, Hayes accepted a proposal to be the top coach at UMBC, the place she helped to develop Kiara Bell, KK White, and Ashia McCalla into All-America East Convention gamers whereas guiding the group to the America East match semifinals for the primary time since 2015.
This successful pedigree probably led ASU’s brass to increase a proposal to Hayes.
“I’m deeply grateful to President Ross, Dr. Cable, and Dr. Lavalais for entrusting me with the unimaginable alternative to guide the Alabama State ladies’s basketball program, Hayes stated. “Alabama State athletics embodies a tradition of unwavering dedication, a championship-driven mindset, robust household values, and faith-based rules. It’s a true honor to be a part of a college that stands firmly behind such core beliefs. Now could be the time for us to come back collectively, SWARMAS1, and construct a legacy of championship-level success for girls’s basketball.”
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