Longtime UNCP coach John Haskins to retire at season’s end

PEMBROKE — After John Haskins won his 250th game as women’s basketball head coach at UNC Pembroke Wednesday night against Barton, there was plenty of acknowledgement among the Braves community of the coach’s career accomplishments and his impact on the program, on and off the court, as often happens after milestones.

Few knew it would be just the first moment in what is sure to be a bittersweet stretch run for the Lady Braves.

Haskins informed his players after Wednesday’s game that he will retire at the end of the season, his 20th leading the Lady Braves and 30th as a head basketball coach in Pembroke. UNCP announced his decision in a press release Thursday.

“I wasn’t crazy about the timing, I didn’t want it to be a distraction,” Haskins told The Robesonian Thursday. “(Athletic Director Dick Christy) had kind of convinced me that both for the welfare of the program in general, and for the current returning girls, that it would be better if he could get to work on this, and once our season was over have a pretty good idea who the new coach would be, so they could figure out their course of action.”

Haskins will compete his 43rd season in coaching, the last 35 of which have come at UNCP. After serving as an assistant coach in the Braves men’s program starting in 1989, he was the head coach from 1992-2002, and also coached men’s golf from 2002-05 and men’s tennis during his time as a men’s basketball assistant.

“John is the ultimate team player,” Christy told The Robesonian Thursday. “Whatever it took, whatever UNCP needed at the moment, he was willing to step up and do it. He was just unbelievably selfless, and he gets the big picture. That’s probably his lasting legacy is just how loyal and how willing to do what’s right for everybody.”

The 65-year-old Haskins said he’s been considering retirement for “probably a couple of years now,” and said that having that on his mind while trying to recruit players to join his program for the next four years weighed into his decision.

“Knowing that I was coming to the end, and was limited on how many years I was going to do it — to me, it made recruiting a little harder,” Haskins said. “I felt a little disingenuous recruiting, just knowing that I wasn’t going to continue to be there. I know you sell kids on the school, but they also develop relationships with the coaching staff, and that was really difficult for me.”

The many off-the-court responsibilities of coaching at the collegiate level were also becoming harder, he said.

“If it was just out there coaching my team and going to practice and games, yeah, I’m good, I’d be all in, but there’s so much more required at the college level that it felt like was getting more and more difficult for me to have the desire to do,” Haskins said.

Haskins decided after last season, with five players taking advantage of their extra year of eligibility from the COVID-19 pandemic, that at a minimum he would coach that group’s final season. Telling next season’s senior class that he wouldn’t be coaching their senior season, though, was difficult, he said.

“The hardest part of the decision was probably Kelci (Adams), Hannah (Russell) and Zaria (Clark), and not being their coach for their senior year, because they’ve been really good kids that have made a significant impact in the program.”

The current Braves are 11-5 overall and 6-1 in Conference Carolinas play, a year removed from the program’s first conference tournament championship and its first NCAA Tournament appearance, which was also Haskins’ first as men’s or women’s coach. The team’s form this season opens up the possibilities for a memorable and successful final season for its coach, with 12 regular-season games remaining.

“I think, regardless of whether I was going to coach another year, with these five COVID seniors, we want to finish strong, and we want to do some things we haven’t done before,” Haskins said. “That was our goal at the beginning of the year, and if we’re playing well we can be a really good team.”

Once the season ends, Haskins said he looks forward to focusing more on his golf game, traveling and volunteering.

“It’s bittersweet — but it’s time,” Haskins said. “I’m going to miss coaching, I’m going to miss having a team, I’m going to miss the relationship with the players. I’m going to do something with basketball eventually. I’ll find some way to help out. I don’t think I’m completely done coaching basketball, I’m just done being a head coach at a college level and the things that go along with that.”

“I think there’s a piece of John that would coach his entire life,” Christy said. “He loves the time with the girls, he loves being in the gym. But I think him and Kelli have a great friend base here in Lumberton, a great setup at the beach, and they’ve obviously been extremely successful so they’ve got a lot of options and a lot of things I’m sure they’re looking forward to as well.”

The timing of Haskins’ announcement gives Christy a head start in the search to find his replacement, with the hope that a hire can be made quickly after the season ends.

“I think John’s built the blueprint where girls are having a great experience and we’re being competitive, in the conference and the region, so it’s a matter of trying to be able to continue that and continue to build on it,” Christy said. “But he’s left the blueprint that we want to follow.”

Haskins’ coaching career followed his collegiate playing career at UNC Wilmington. He is 250-281 in his 20 seasons coaching the Lady Braves, and was 105-163 as the men’s head coach. His 250 wins with the women’s program are more than twice as many as any other coach in the program’s 50-season history.

As men’s basketball coach, Haskins was voted Peach Belt Conference Coach of the Year for the 2001-02 season.

In addition to the four sports he has coached at UNCP, he was also men’s cross country coach at Gardner-Webb during his time as a men’s basketball assistant there in the 1980s.

Saturday’s home game against Lees-McRae will mark Haskins’ 800th combined game as a head basketball coach.