EARNING RESPECT: Gretna coach Herb Daniels has the Hawks on the right path

At the end of the 2007-08 season, Gretna coach Herb Daniels felt his girls team was two to three years away from being very competitive. Once his team started believing it could play, the wins would eventually come.

Following the first summer in a long time where a majority of the players took part in several camps, Daniels saw the improvement and saw the chemistry. His vision of getting the girls to run and play fundamentally sound basketball was coming to fruition much sooner than he thought.

And as it turned out, the wait for the wins was shorter than expected. Daniels’ Hawks won eight games during the ’08-09 season and finished fifth in the Dogwood District.

After several winless seasons, which Daniels described as an 0-and-forever drought, it was about time that Gretna finally gained some respectability.

“How do we get back to be respectable in the Dogwood?,” Daniels asked prior to the Dogwood District tournament. “This year, finishing 8-12 — just that alone just made teams in the Dogwood go, ‘Whoa, we used to play Gretna and could automatically chalk it up as a win.’ They can no longer do that.”

It wasn’t just teams in the Dogwood that needed to look out for the Hawks. Those Group AA teams that seemingly were out of the league of the Group A Hawks last season? Well, they soon found out how prepared Gretna was. Martinsville, a solid AA team, became the first victim in the Hawks’ path.

In total, Gretna racked up six wins in the team’s first 14 games. They were sitting pretty in the Dogwood — and it wasn’t far-fetched to think that the Hawks could contend with Altavista and Dan River for a district title.

“I guess we’re more in it to win it this year,” senior Savanna Butts said. “Most people thought we’d be the underdog this year and then we just started coming out and winning more and practicing harder, which made us work harder.”

After not being able to find many to play in his first season, Daniels counted around 45 to 47 girls who came to tryouts in the summer. In addition to the plethora of ninth graders that made up his varsity team a year ago, it was clear to see the transformation of the Hawks come sooner rather than later.

The returning players cited the new additions as something that pushed them to getting better to keep their playing time. Senior Ashleigh Meeks thought the different elements that each person added contributed to the team’s success.

And they did. Plus, it doesn’t hurt with the style that Daniels uses.

“It’s like it’s a difference, you know, coach Daniels is just more of a coach and stuck with us through thick and thin,” senior Amber Fitzgerald said. “It’s a big support. It lets us know that we can do better.”

Getting the girls to believe they could win? After those early wins, check.

That was No. 1 on the list that was part of Daniels’ plan to get Gretna back on track. The early success did pay off due to No. 2 on the list, which was having a strong offseason conditioning program. The girls ran track and put in the hours to get better.

Trying to keep things as simple as possible? Daniels had his girls making sure that one or two plays they ran during the Dogwood District tournament against Chatham were done well. And even when things were going wrong, unlike other coaches in the area who spew anger or disbelief, the encouragement coming from Daniels was almost soothing.

“The best type of leader is a cheerleader, because I never give up on them. I know what they can do, but they don’t really know what they can do yet. Some of them, I sit here and look at some of these ladies on the team and they have no idea what their abilities are,” Daniels said as he pointed to an assortment of players who were passing by or shooting during drills. “I believe in them, I believe in what they can do and I think they see how excited I am about stuff. So once they see me excited, they get excited.”

And there was plenty to be excited about during the Hawks’ season — a season filled with more highs than lows.