EASY AS 1-2-3

STORY BY GAVIN LANG PHOTOS BY BRUCE WATERFIELD, DANIEL HEFLIN AND HOYT FAMILY

Since Jacie Hoyt’s hiring as Oklahoma State women’s basketball head coach, we’ve learned a little bit about her.

We’ve learned that she has worked her way up the coaching ranks. We’ve learned she is the daughter of a high school coaching legend. We’ve learned she is a high-energy coach.

But people who know her path to Stillwater know that her story isn’t as clean and simple as being the coach’s kid and footsteps followed.

Hers is not a story of style without substance.

The perspectives shared by the people who know her best tell a much richer story.

Jane Albright is well known in women’s basketball circles. She coached 40 years in the high school and collegiate ranks and was mentored by a trio of legends in Pat Summitt, Kay Yow and John Wooden

She was a graduate assistant under Summitt at Tennessee before moving on to stops as head coach at Northern Illinois, Wisconsin, Wichita State and Nevada, retiring in 2017.

While the head coach at Wichita State, Albright recruited high school prospect Hoyt, unsuccessfully. Hoyt was more interested in higher profile programs that were showing interest.

“I couldn’t even get Jacie to answer my calls,” Albright said. “She had everyone after her, and Wichita State was not high on her list.”

Hoyt signed a national letter of intent with Oklahoma State. Following a coaching change at OSU after she signed, but prior to her arrival, the new sta had a di erent philosophy and Hoyt had to find a new landing spot. The timing limited her options, and she ended up at Colby Community College, where she su ered a serious knee injury that kept her on the sidelines.

While that sequence of events was devastating for Hoyt, it created an opening for Albright to land her prized recruit.

“I knew how good Jacie was, and I also knew how successful her mother was as a coach, but I didn’t truly know either of them,” Albright said. “We didn’t really connect in recruiting because I couldn’t get through to her, but after the injury in junior college I stayed with her, and things worked out how they were supposed to work out.”

What neither Hoyt nor Albright knew at the time was that Albright would become one of the most influential figures in Hoyt’s life.

“Jacie was a star in high school, but I didn’t really get that version of her because after her injuries and the disappointment, she was really in a soul-searching time of her life,” Albright said. “She was injured most of her time with us, but when she was healthy, she was so fierce and would kill to win a drill in practice.”

Hoyt’s ferocity made an impression on Albright, but there was more.

“I wore a ‘What Would Jesus Do’ bracelet, and Jacie came up to me one day, pointed to my bracelet and told me that is what she really wanted,” Albright said.

“We use the term ‘Kingdom Coaching,’ which means that coaches have the ability to not only help players with basketball, but they can also use the game as a platform to invest in their players as people and maybe even help them through faith,” Albright said. “Kingdom Coaching is how I got to really understand how exceptional Jacie is.”

Albright was let go at Wichita State during Hoyt’s time as a player, but when Albright landed at Nevada, she kept tabs on Hoyt from a distance and then hired her as a full-time assistant coach.

“Jacie’s injuries and the struggles she faced made her stronger,” Albright said. “Combine that with her natural competitiveness and the character that she had, and I knew that she had a chance to be an even better coach than she was a player.”

At Nevada, Hoyt continued to develop in the Kingdom Coaching atmosphere championed by Albright.

“You always want hard workers on your sta , and Jacie was a hard worker with character who complemented my vision,” Albright said. “I knew she wouldn’t be at Nevada very long because she had bigger goals and vision. Jacie is exceptional and was always going to have greater opportunities.”

Still, the impact Albright had on Hoyt was immense.

“Jane Albright taught me how to use basketball as a platform to impact lives,” Hoyt said. “She helped me understand that you can, at the same time, coach basketball and help people grow as believers. There’s this narrative that it’s win at all costs, but you can be both.”

After learning from Summitt, Yow and Wooden in addition to 40 years of her own experiences, Albright knows what she’s talking about.

“Jacie wants to win a national championship and has the energy, the basketball knowledge and the built-in ferocity and work ethic to actually do it. Maybe the piece I was able to help her with was showing her that you can be a person of faith who loves and serves others while still being a fierce competitor,” Albright said.

It is a sign of true belief when an athletic director hires a head coach, because get enough coaching hires wrong, and it could be the AD whose reputation comes into question in the pressure-packed world of NCAA Division I sports.

Better get it right.

When then-Kansas City athletic director Carla Wilson interviewed Jacie Hoyt for the head coaching job in 2017, Hoyt had no direct ties to the school, wasn’t yet 30 years old and had never called a timeout in her life.

Still, Wilson put her own name on the line by hiring the fresh-faced assistant from Kansas State.

On the day of the hiring announcement, Wilson cited Hoyt’s basketball pedigree, knowledge, recruiting experience and desire to develop young women among the reasons for selecting Hoyt to lead the Roos program.

Not included were comments about Hoyt’s leadership, perhaps because that was the great unknown — Hoyt had never been a head coach.

For Wilson, it required a leap of faith — she was a true believer.

“When I first looked at her, I knew about her mom and the basketball background she came from. I didn’t know her, though,” Wilson said. “In the initial interview, I could tell she was passionate about basketball, but I wanted to know about her as a person. At the very end of the interview, I asked her if there was anything else I should know, and she made a point of telling me that her faith was important to her. After she said that, she was concerned that would be a deal-breaker for me.”

Hardly. Wilson scheduled Hoyt for an in-person interview.

“When we met in person, it became clear that she was the one,” Wilson said. “I loved her integrity. I felt it. There was a connection between us, and I knew she was the perfect fit.”

The job was Hoyt’s, and her career as a head coach had o cially launched.

“Once I hired her, she was more than I could expect,” Wilson said. “She went above and beyond in recruiting. She went above and beyond in making sure the student-athletes knew how to compose themselves, both on and o the court. Community service was big for her. She took time after every game with the fans to tell them how important they were.

“She blew it out of the water,” Wilson said. “She revived our program. She turned it around and got people to believe in her. She asked me to trust her, and then she delivered on everything.”

It wasn’t the basketball that Wilson loved most about Hoyt. It was the impact she was having on the people around her.

“It was so important to me to have a good person, one who I could lay my head down at night and know that she was treating people the right way,” Wilson said. “I knew I was taking a chance with a young, first-time head coach but I would do it a million times over. She is a wonderful person and does it the right way.”

Hoyt rewarded Wilson’s belief with a five-year run that was transformational for the program. She compiled an 81-65 overall record (.555 winning percentage) and a 48-31 mark in conference play (.608). For perspective, the six Kansas City coaches before her combined to go 242-437 overall (.356) and 144-215 in conference play (.401). In 2021-22, she coached the Roos to their first postseason appearance in a decade.

“Being attached to giving Jacie Hoyt her start as a head coach will forever be the greatest accomplishment and honor of my athletics career,” Wilson said.

As Hoyt was establishing herself as a successful head coach at Kansas City, a former co-worker of hers from Kansas State was also growing into prominence, but as an athletics administrator.

His name? Chad Weiberg

“I don’t remember specific interactions that I had with her at K-State, but I remember that every interaction I had

“She has a great vision , and she believes in herself and what she can accomplish and what her team can do.”

with her, I left feeling very positive,” Weiberg said. “She was at the start of her coaching career, but she had a lot of potential, and it was clear that she would be successful. When she got her first head coaching opportunity, I followed her, and it wasn’t surprising at all that she had success at UMKC.”

Less than one year after ascending into the athletic director role at Oklahoma State, Weiberg was in search of a head women’s basketball coach. He knew in general what he wanted, and based on what he knew about Hoyt, identified her as a potential match.

“First and foremost, you want to put someone in front of your student-athletes who you believe is going to be the best teacher, best role model, best motivator and who will provide the best experience possible for the student-athletes now and into the future,” Weiberg said. “That was a big part of the profile in what we were looking for in our next head coach. Also, being competitive and winning — and winning championships — because that is what student-athletes want out of their experience at OSU. I had no reservations about Jacie being all those things.

“The ability to build a program, connect with our fans and do it in a way that is sustainable. That’s what we want to do here. I believe with Jacie, we can achieve the same level of

success with women’s basketball that we have in so many of our other sports.”

So Weiberg had his vision for what Cowgirl Basketball could be and his instincts led him to Hoyt, but he graduated into true believer status after a phone call with Kansas City athletic director Brandon Martin

“I spoke to him and his reaction was, ‘I’ve been expecting this call.’ Not necessarily from us, but he knew the day was coming that someone else would give her the opportunity to take this next step,” Weiberg said.

Hoyt was ready for something greater, and Weiberg and Martin both knew it.

“The energy, the talent — all those things I remembered about her — that’s exactly what we have seen from her here at Oklahoma State,” Weiberg said. “She has a great vision, and she believes in herself and what she can accomplish and what her team can do.”

Hoyt has instilled that same belief in Weiberg, and as a result, he is more than an athletic director.

He is a true believer.

Naomie Alnatas is a long way from her home in French Guiana.

She showed an early aptitude for basketball and recognized that if she stayed home, the options to reach her highest potential in the game were going to be limited. At age 14, she was serious enough about pursuing her dream that she left her family and moved to France.

“I got on the plane by myself and had a picture of the coach who was going to pick me up at the airport, but I didn’t know,” Alnatas said. “All I knew was that I needed to make that move if I was going to become a professional basketball player.”

After playing club ball in France, she found her way to the United States and Iowa Western Community College, where she earned honorable mention NJCAA All-America honors and a scholarship o er from Hoyt at Kansas City.

Alnatas was about five years removed from living with her family, and what she didn’t know at the time was that she was getting more than a coach in Hoyt, she was getting someone who would be like a second mother.

“Not just a mom,” Alnatas said of Hoyt. “She has taught me a lot. I was not really a leader when I got to Kansas City, but she really developed that in me. She is a woman of faith, and that is really important to me. She’s a truth-teller. She’s only one individual, but she plays di erent roles in my life other than just being a coach.

“She is feisty, she is fierce, she is intense and unapologetic, and she just shows you that you can be aggressive as a woman, and I just love that about her. It’s cool to play for somebody who is like a lion. You feel her passion. She’ll fight for you. It makes you want to give it back to her.”

Alnatas did just that during her time in Kansas City, where last season she ranked second in the Summit League with 18.6 points per game and led the league with 5.3 assists per contest.

So when Hoyt took the job at Oklahoma State, Alnatas faced a risky decision — did she want to give up being the top returning player in the league to follow her coach to OSU and the Big 12, where nothing would be promised and attaining that same kind of status would be much more di cult?

She chose Jacie Hoyt.

Again.

“For me, it’s like a family member,” Alnatas said. “It’s more than just a coach-player relationship. It’s more life and family oriented. We are a lot alike — feisty and fierce. We are women in Christ, and I feel it. Seeing that in her is great because we match so well.”

It really has come full circle for Alnatas, who once got on a plane with only a photo of a coach who she didn’t know to now having a coach in Jacie Hoyt that she refers to as a second mother. Alnatas’ perspective on Hoyt is unique, and she knows exactly how it will translate to her role with the Cowgirls.

“There is a total new culture, a 360 (degree) culture that she is trying to implement here, and it helps to have a player who understands it,” Alnatas said. “That’s part of why she brought me here, to help everybody else understand the culture, the expectations and how we do things.”

THE INSPIRATION

It doesn’t take much research to figure out what inspires Jacie Hoyt.

Heck, she states it as plain as day in her Twitter bio: 3 things that make my world go round ... Jesus. Family. Hoops. Blame it on her roots.

The second of four sisters, Jacie is the daughter of Scott and Shelly Hoyt, who made faith a large part of their upbringing.

But they did more than teach it, they modeled it by leading others through service.

During a college career that was largely derailed by injuries, Jacie’s faith was tested and refined. Rather than succumb to the first ACL tear, or the second, or the third, or the fourth, she took a much wider view of the adversity and used it to serve others.

“Those injuries really shaped me, Hoyt said. “I got to see the game from a di erent lens. I got a taste of being the star player while I was in high school to being on the sidelines. That expedited my coaching career and made me a better coach. It gave me the ability to connect with my players and empathize with them. I want to use my platform to invest in them and let them know I care as much about them as people and as players.”

Look no further than Naomie Alnatas for verification of that claim.

When Hoyt was recruiting Alnatas from Iowa Western, she had a fight on her hands because Alnatas also held o ers from Big 12 schools that were more prominent than Kansas City. During the recruiting process, Alnatas su ered a significant knee injury and the Big 12 schools rescinded their o ers.

But Hoyt didn’t.

taught at a very young age — it’s what we do and it’s part of what makes Jacie great because she strives to be the best,” Terran said.

Shelly has more than 550 career coaching victories to rank second all-time among female head coaches in Kansas high school basketball history. The Hoyt girls have been around the game their entire lives.

Shelly said Jacie got her start in the game as a preschooler. As Shelly was coaching at practice, young Jacie

would be o to the side mimicking the drills run by Shelly’s players. It was more than that, though. It was Jacie dribbling around the house. It was Jacie going to the gym to work out on

“Tabitha played the flute in school, and to get an A in band, she had to practice 30 minutes on her own every night,” Shelly said. “Jacie saw this is what it took for Tabitha to get good at the flute, so she would practice ball-handling for 30 minutes every night in our basement so she could be good at

It was happening — Jacie was falling in love with the . Shelly accelerated her progress by delivering a consistent message to Jacie — if you really want to do this, then you need to do it the right way. With that as the foundation, Jacie’s skills and confidence grew and by the time she reached high school, she was a star.

There was a price to pay, though. It’s the same price that many successful children of coaches have to pay — resentment from teammates and scorn from parents and

Jacie became a target, and on top of that, she watched as her mother absorbed unfair criticism and hate.

“It looks so pretty and perfect all the time (with Jacie), but she has overcome a lot,” Terran said. “She’s had to fight a lot of battles but that’s who she is — she is an overcomer.”

Shelly had her own thoughts.

“She is so poised and maybe she got that more from Scott than from me, because I probably would have gotten some technical fouls or even worse as a player if I were in the situations Jacie was in,” Shelly said.

Shelly said Jacie was initially reluctant to get into coaching because Jacie saw everything that Shelly went through in dealing with angry parents and more. In the end, though, Jacie couldn’t walk away from the game she was so

Along the way, Jacie was ignited by an additional purpose in coaching — the concept that she had a platform to empower

“What makes me most proud of Jacie is that she does things for the right reasons,” Shelly said. “How she treats her players and how she loves them — I truly wish they knew how much she thinks about them all the time. So many of her everyday decisions are based on helping them.”

There is a lot of Shelly in Jacie.

“We’re both two-feet-in with everything we do,” Jacie said. “If you’re going to do it, you need to do it to the absolute best of your ability. She taught us to be bold and courageous. Her boldness stuck with me. She taught me if you work hard and do things with integrity and do things the right way and don’t back down, good things will come.”

You can’t make up some of the stu that happens on social media. It’s wild.

Often times, it takes scrolling through piles of digital garbage to find something legitimate.

So what in the world was Jacie Hoyt supposed to do that one day in 2016 when the Facebook message came to her out of the blue from someone she didn’t know?

Hey Jacie! I don’t think we’ve o cially met but I wanted to reach out and introduce myself. We have a lot of friends in common and I actually asked Chad Weiberg the other night about you. Being from Kansas, both Wichita State grads and working in college athletics makes it a small world. Maybe we can plan to meet in the near future if that’s ok. Anyway, just thought I’d reach out and break the ice (kind of) and hope you’re having a great day.

Guns up! ��

Daniel

She never responded.

As it turns out, Daniel was legit.

At the time, Hoyt was an assistant coach at Kansas State and Daniel Heflin was in development at Texas Tech. Heflin became aware of Hoyt through Big 12 circles and found a common acquaintance in then-Texas Tech deputy athletic director Chad Weiberg.

A little more than nine months after Heflin clicked send on his original message, Hoyt was hired as head coach at Kansas City. Still working at Texas Tech, Heflin was on a scheduled visit to Kansas City and decided to give it another shot — this time, asking a mutual connection to introduce him to Hoyt in person.

It happened, and the two fell for each other.

One problem though — Hoyt was living in Kansas City and Heflin in Lubbock. As a first-year head coach without much free time or bandwidth to invest in a serious relationship, it was never going to be easy for Hoyt. Still, the two remained in contact, even as the basketball season was bearing down.

Finally, Hoyt suggested a break. They wouldn’t speak for a week and after that, they’d figure out if the relationship was worth the long-distance hassle.

Three days into the break, it was Heflin’s turn to receive an out-of-the-blue proposal. Completely unprompted, Kansas called and o ered him a job in its athletic department.

Stunned, he immediately dialed Hoyt, who stayed true to the break and didn’t take the call.

After a few days, the break came and went. Heflin told Hoyt about the o er, he took the job in Lawrence, and not long after, the couple were married.

Fast forward to today, Hoyt is still coaching ball and Heflin is still in development, now at Oklahoma State.

“I can’t imagine being married to a more supportive husband,” Hoyt said. “He’s by my side in everything I do. He’s encouraged me to chase my dreams and is a crucial piece to me and the success I’ve had.”

Heflin wasn’t drawn to Hoyt because she was a basketball coach. He said he was drawn to her for the person that she is. Now that the two are married, he pulls inspiration from her father.

“I have seen the impact that Scott Hoyt has on Shelly, and I want to be that for Jacie,” Heflin said. “He is so supportive in everything he does. He understands the coaching side of things but he is also the kind of person that you can go to for advice in life. I look up to him and try my best to mirror that for Jacie.”

It all ties together with Jacie Hoyt. There are di erent perspectives, but they all point to one messy, imperfect, non-traditional story that she tells in an 11-word Twitter bio.

3 things that make my world go round ... Jesus. Family. Hoops.