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By JERRY KELLAR jkellar@leader.net
Friday, March 07, 2003 Page: 1B
When Montana State University women’s basketball coach Robin Potera-Haskins
tells her players not to be afraid to dream big dreams, she’s not just feeding
them a line.
She’s speaking from experience.
“Right from day one, I wanted to coach at the highest level,” the Wyoming
Valley West High School graduate. “I dreamed about it.”
Still, not even Potera-Haskins could have imagined the success story her
life has become since leaving Kingston more than 20 years ago.
Last season, her first at Montana State, Potera-Haskins became the first
rookie coach to lead the Bobcats to a regular season Big Sky Conference title
and the league championship game.
With the 2002-03 campaign winding down, MSU is 18-7 overall and, at 9-3 in
the league, finds itself in a three-way tie for first place. Last weekend, the
Bobcats had their 23-game home court winning streak snapped.
“I absolutely love what I’m doing,” Potera-Haskins, 41, said recently.
“There are only 126 Division-I jobs in the country, and to have one of those
types of programs is fantastic.
“I worked my whole life to put myself in a position to do this.”
Quite literally.
Potera-Haskins’ coaching resume starts as far back as her early teens in
the Wyoming Valley, when she served as both league commissioner and coach of a
Little League softball team.
“That’s when I found out I really loved the game and I loved being around
the kids,” said Potera-Haskins, who credits a long list of area natives for
her success, including sister Kathy Potera and former Lady Spartan softball
coach Marge Kelly.
“I found out you can teach young people a lot of lessons. Of course, you
want to win. I loved the feeling of winning. We won the championship like
three years in a row when I coached that little Yankees team, and I never got
that feeling out of me. I knew from that moment on I was going to be a
coach.”
The then-Robin Potera was also doing quite well as player. A standout in
softball and basketball in high school, she led the Wyoming Valley Conference
basketball league in scoring in the 1978-79 season while playing in the same
backcourt with Deanna Sabolesky (now Klingman), who went on to lead the
University of Scranton to a Division III national championship.
A 1984 graduate of Evangel College in Springfield, Mo., Potera-Haskins
earned her master’s in physical education from Stephen F. Austin University in
Texas. Her coaching career resumed at Austin, where she served as a graduate
assistant with the Lady Jacks’ basketball team.
“Without a doubt. I’m one of the only coaches in the country that truly
worked their way up the ladder.”
The road to the top began in Texas, with stops at Nimitz High School in
Irving and Wilmer Hutchins High in Dallas. Potera-Haskins won three district
titles at “Hutch” and twice was named coach of the year.
“Then, I finally got my chance.”
It came at Austin College, where Potera-Haskins compiled an 85-46 record in
five years, winning 20 games or more in each of the final three seasons. A
two-time coach-of-the-year honoree, she guided the Lady Kangaroos to three
consecutive postseason tournaments, including a pair of NCAA D-III “Sweet
16” appearances.
The next stop was Texas Wesleyan, where Potera-Haskins led the Lady Rams to
an 18-9 mark in her first season – a 12-game turnaround from the previous
year. The team’s record improved to 21-6 (the best won-lost record in school
history) for the 2000-2001 campaign, good for a second-place finish in the
Heartland Conference.
“What was good about it was, the places I went to were losing programs and
we were able to turn the programs around. When you work your way up it just
prepares you for what you’ve got to face.”
It’s no coincidence that the fiery Potera-Haskins, whose career coaching
record stands at 291-129 (69.3 percent), made it to the highest level of the
collegiate game just as the women’s game was hitting its peak in popularity.
“She has a tremendous amount of energy and drive,” said MSU Athletic
Director Peter Fields.
Her goal is to one day make Montana State synonymous with noted national
powers UConn and Tennessee.
“We’re making great strides. The longer we have a chance to build our
program up, the better the program’s gonna get. We’ve got a great thing going
here and we’re excited about that.”
Although a “Valley” girl at heart, she enjoys her new life in Bozeman,
Mont., where she met her husband, Bill Haskins. The couple is raising twin
11-year-old adopted girls from Japan.
“God’s been really good to me,” she said.
Potera-Haskins paused when asked if she would eventually like to coach a
big-time men’s program.
“Some people even ask me about coaching on the pro level,” she said with
a laugh. “I really like coaching college girls. It’s an age where they’re
just getting to a point where they’re becoming young adults and you can have a
great impact.
“I want to take our program to the highest level. Who knows though? If
they ask me to take over the Dallas Mavericks, I definitely would listen to
them a little bit.”