STARKVILLE — Chemistry is vital to Johnnie Harris.
As important as that quality is to building and maintaining a successful coaching staff, Harris reserves the right to agree to disagree with Vic Schaefer, Dionnah Jackson-Durrett, and Carly Thibault-DuDonis. That’s part of why she feels the Mississippi State women’s basketball coaches work so well together.
“I think we do a good job of figuring out what coach Schaefer wants and being able to cycle it down to the players,” Harris said. “Sometimes that is hard because you might not all agree — and we don’t all agree — but we agree to disagree, so I think for our players, for coach Schaefer, for everybody to see our chemistry and to see everybody work together, I think that makes for a great coaching staff.”
Harris has served as Schaefer’s associate head coach for each of their six seasons at MSU. Their tireless work ethic has led the charge and helped transform MSU into one of the nation’s elite programs. The work of Jackson-Durrett, who is in her third season at MSU, and Thibault-DuDonis, who is in her second season, director of operations Maryann Baker, director of scouting/video coordinator Skylar Collins, and student assistant Dominique Dillingham rounds out a staff Schaefer typically refers to the “best in the country.”
“I think all of our coaches are worthy of being recognized in our profession as one of the best, or the best,” said Schaefer, who was named Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year earlier this month. “We are so fortunate to have the staff we have. … They’re all tremendous. At some point in their careers they’re going to be great head coaches. I think they’re all worthy of any recognition they can get. I feel like they’re the best.
On Wednesday, the Atlanta Tipoff Club named Schaefer one of four finalists for the Werner Ladder Naismith Coach of the Year. Harris has been nominated for the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association’s (WBCA) Assistant Coach of the Year award, which is presented annually in each of the six membership divisions. Thibault-DuDonis has been nominated for the WBCA’s Thirty Under 30 award, which honors 30 of the up-and-coming women’s basketball coaches age 30 and under at all levels.
Schaefer said all of his coaches have a tremendous amount of respect and love for each other. He said that feeling has helped the “family” experience unprecedented success the last two seasons. A year ago, MSU won a program-record 34 games and made its first appearance in the Final Four — where it ended four-time reigning national champion Connecticut’s NCAA-record 111-game winning streak — and in the national title game. This season, MSU (32-1) went 16-0 and won its first SEC regular-season title. That success helped MSU earn its first No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. MSU will put that mark on the line at 5 p.m. Saturday (ESPN2) when it plays host to No. 16 seed Nicholls (19-13) in the first round of the NCAA tournament at Humphrey Coliseum.
This is the 11th year Harris has worked with Schaefer. She said she knew Schaefer when he worked at Arkansas and she was starting out as a coach at Arkansas-Fort Smith. She said she worked camps at Arkansas and went to games in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in an effort to learn as much as she could about the profession. Years later, Harris and Schaefer worked for Gary Blair on a coaching staff that led Texas A&M to the 2011 national title. Harris said Schaefer has remained an intense, tough coach who holds players accountable, which helps explain why the Bulldogs have won 22, 27, 28, and 34 games the last four seasons.
“He is not a micro manager,” Harris said. “Now that we have been together, we already know what he wants, but he will tell us what he wants done. We’ll get it done. If he feels like there is a better way or if there is more, he will tell us. We have an open line of communication. More times than not, he lets us work and get it done.”
While Harris cites chemistry as a key for MSU’s coaches, Jackson-Durrett, who gave birth to a baby girl, Laila Renee, in January, said all of the coaches love the “daily grind” associated with their jobs.
“I think it is our willingness to work,” Jackson-Durrett said. “You have to have an attitude to come in to work every day, bring your lunch pail, your hard hat. I think that is the attitude we carry.”
Jackson-Durrett said she loves the grind because she enjoyed practice when she was a point guard for coach Sherri Coale at Oklahoma. She said Schaefer has fostered a similar environment in Starkville and has allowed her to work in her way with point guards Morgan William, Jazzmun Holmes, and Myah Taylor.
“Morgan has come so far,” Jackson-Durrett said. “I see her now coaching people and telling people different things in her own way. That is important because Jazz and Morgan can get caught up in we’re splitting time this year and this and this, but they are themselves. Jazz does what Jazz does well and Morgan does what Morgan does well. Jazz is not trying to be Morgan, and Morgan is not trying to be Jazz. I think that is important. They both have their own identity. That happened because Vic let me coach them.”
Thibault-DuDonis, who works with the wing players, said Schaefer has hired “good people” who have a “blue-collar” mentality. Even though everyone comes from different backgrounds, Thibault-DuDonis said the coaches push each other to do whatever it takes to get things done.
“If you have someone to your right and left working to get it done, you’re going to pull your weight in that regard,” Thibault-DuDonis said.
Harris said MSU’s coaches haven’t taken a day off since Sunday to make sure everything is in place for the season’s final six-game stretch. She feels the faith the coaches have in God and in each other and their hard work and preparation helped elevate MSU to a top-five program. She believes those things will keep MSU in that position.
“I feel like this is what we came here to do,” Harris said. “I didn’t know we would be where we are this quick, but I did believe we would get here. We pray together. We believe. We have faith. If you have faith, you believe you can do it, and we did. We believed we could do it.
“We knew we had to roll up our sleeves and get after it. That is just what we have done. Do I feel like there is more to be done? Yes.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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