Winless Gretna builds a foundation for girls basketball program

MATT FUCHS
Danville Register & Bee
Published: February 20, 2008

Herb Daniels has never been tested nor diagnosed, but that doesn’t stop him from being a firm believer that he has an attention deficit disorder.

Spend five minutes talking with him though, and it’s tough not to become a believer, too.

The words and ideas come spilling from Daniels’ mouth almost as quickly as his synapses fire them. It’s like whitewater rafting on a stream of consciousness.

One second Daniels is busy running down the list of opponents he feels his Gretna girls basketball team can beat, and the next moment he’s asking no one in particular if they’ve ever seen the movie 300, because a scene from the flick just gave him the idea for another page in his Hawks’ playbook.

A clinical case of ADHD? Perhaps. Dizzying? Somewhat.  Just what the Hawks need in a coach? Definitely.

After winning just two games over the last 2½ seasons, the Gretna girls were certainly up for a change of pace. And the perpetual motion machine that is Daniels wants to be the one to make that change.

Not that it has been, or will be easy for the retired Army major.

The Hawks have no summer program, no offseason conditioning program and no freshman or B team. But for the man with a million and one ideas, putting a program back together is half the fun. The other half? Well, Daniels has never met a challenge he hasn’t liked.

“If I had to go on a scale of 1 to 10, I’d say we’re probably operating on a 3½ to 4 right now,” Daniels said. “To get the program back to where it’s very competitive ball will take two to three years realistically.

“What I’m working on (with the Hawks) is the commitment and dedication and belief in themselves. Once we get that settled down, we’ll start winning some games.”

And after losing 91-48 to the Dan River Wildcats in the first round of the Dogwood District tournament on Monday and finishing 0-21 this year, Daniels’ plan is still a work in progress. Just as it was the first day he took over the program.

Daniels had been working as an Army recruiting commander in Roanoke and then more recently in a position at the Pentagon before he came to Gretna in April of 2006. Not that the Army hadn’t been good to him, but Daniels wanted a change of pace. And for a man with three master’s degrees (and intent on another), a bachelor’s degree, one gig working as an online teacher for the University of Phoenix and another job running a photography business out of his home and, oh by the way, four kids of his own - the next challenge always seems to be dawning with each new day.

“I am always moving, always thinking, always on the go,” Daniels said. “I can’t sit still.”

And that’s how, after 22 years in the military, Daniels came to Gretna. He saw it as a chance to gain experience and progress toward his latest goal of becoming a principal. Becoming not only the school’s JROTC instructor, but also a sponsor for the school’s student newspaper and an assistant coach for the Hawks’ softball team while working to achieve that goal just gave Daniels a little something extra to do on the side.

“I’m a believer that the more you stay around youth, the more you hold onto that youthfulness within yourself,” Daniels said.

If only any youth had the energy of this 43-year-old man.

Daniels knew the situation he was getting himself into when he signed on as the Hawks’ coach. People told him that the Hawks wouldn’t be able to do this, and could never achieve that. And early on, the players themselves only seemed to back those statements up.

Many of the Hawks had never played organized basketball before. Others, when Daniels asked them what position they played at an open gym over the summer - one, two or three - did not understand and simply replied, “Down low.”

“At that point I realized there was some work to do,” Daniels said. “But I also realized the talent was there though.

“The first place I wanted to start was fundamentals. Because, for the girls to be somewhat successful, they have to know the basics. They have to have a knowledge of the game.”

Once a basic understanding of the game was instilled in his players, Daniels moved on to his next task, motivating and whipping the Hawks into shape. Both objectives were right up the ex-military man’s alley.

Known as a runner, that is exactly what Daniels had his girls do - run. A lot. And in between, he’d mix in messages of confidence, telling his players that he believed they could win and win now.

“(Daniels) encourages us more than we encourage ourselves,” Gretna’s Vatavia Crews said.

Added Hawks teammate Georgia Davis: “It’s like, ‘Wow.’ He shined a light on us, made us believe in ourselves.”

Not that it was always easy.

Gretna had an early schedule stacked with tough competition: Bassett, Tunstall (twice), Halifax County, Person County and Jefferson Forest - Group AA and AAA teams that were quite literally out of the Single-A Hawks’ league. And every time Daniels felt like his girls had gained a measure of confidence from some positive note he found in one loss, the next tough match-up would come along and another loss would knock the Hawks back down a peg. It was like taking one step forward and then two steps back.

“It’s tough,” Daniels said of that early schedule. “What it does, it plays on the girls’ confidence level. But this is what everyone doesn’t understand … We lost to all of them before we played (Dogwood District rivals) Nelson and William Campbell. Those six losses there before you even get to your level of competition is a killer.”

Yet, Daniels remained determined. After all, this is a guy whose favorite quote from former General Colin Powell is, “Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.”

“If you are consistently and constantly optimistic, that will rub off,” Daniels said. “And that will give you a certain amount of strength that might not be there physically.”

Which isn’t to say that Daniels doesn’t have plans to work on the physical aspect of the game, too.

In addition to the creation of an offseason conditioning program, Daniels also has plans to start an intramural league at Gretna at the end of the spring sports season - a program consisting of some five to seven teams that will get more and more girls into the gym and playing. It’s a group that Daniels believes will give him a bigger pool of players to put on the court next season. A group of kids that Daniels hopes will become the future of girls basketball at the school - particularly since his Hawks will lose only one player to graduation (Kim Adams). It’s a future that Daniels sees as a bright one, though he probably doesn’t know any other way to look at it.

“I think it’s going to lift their spirits again and show people that there are some very talented female athletes at this school,” Daniels said. “For so long there hasn’t been an emphasis placed on girls basketball at this school.”

The change has already started.

In the first few minutes after Gretna was knocked out of the playoffs on Monday, Daniels was already back to his big ideas - one of which was how he believes Gretna can go 10-2 in the Dogwood next season.

High hopes, perhaps. But when told of their coach’s prediction, five of Gretna’s returning players could do nothing but agree. Forward Savannah Butts even went so far as to up the ante.

“11-1,” she said.

Perpetual optimism indeed.

Contact Matt Fuchs at or (434) 791-7997.