This story originally appeared in the Jan. 12 edition of the weekly LINK Reader. To get these stories first, subscribe here.
As December was about to enter its final week, girls basketball coach Katie Haitz had an inkling she was approaching career win No. 200 at Ryle High School.
But Haitz didn’t know exactly how close she was to 200, and she didn’t have time to find out. The Raiders had just wrapped up a three-day stay at a holiday tournament in Lexington. Christmas was coming up. The Raiders played three games Dec. 27-29. After that were New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day activities with family and friends.
There simply was no time for Haitz to look into a personal milestone.
“I had no idea I was as close as I was,” Haitz said. “I looked into it a few times, then I lost track of it.”
All the while, her husband, Josh Haitz, was keeping track. He’s a Ryle assistant coach.
“Apparently, he knew how close I was the whole time,” the head coach said. “But he didn’t tell me.”
What her husband was doing was telling other people, including current and former Ryle players, how close the coach was getting to win No. 200, while otherwise keeping things a secret.
The head coach reached the milestone Dec. 27 at home when the Raiders upended Boyd County, 69-66, in overtime. That’s when Haitz’s husband told her the news. Hugs and handshakes went all around. What Haitz’s husband didn’t tell her was that a much bigger commemoration of the occasion was in the works.
“We had a big celebration Jan. 5 when we played Dixie Heights,” coach Haitz said. “We had our Veterans Day game that day, when Ryle players and coaches come back.”
Unbeknownst to coach Haitz, husband Haitz figured out a way to maximize the impact of the coach’s milestone. He acted oblivious in the run-up to the big win. All the while, he was coordinating the biggest celebration possible by syncing it with the return of many of the head coach’s former players for Ryle’s Veterans Day, a salute to military service.
“He told us what he was doing after practice one day,” Ryle senior Quinn Eubank said. “We all thought it was so sweet.”
When the Dixie Heights game rolled around, Josh Haitz rolled out the big celebration, replete with commemorative game ball, current and former players, former assistants, family members and various other friends of the Ryle basketball family.
“I didn’t even realize I’d done it until my husband told me when we beat Boyd,” coach Haitz said. “I was for sure surprised when we played Dixie Heights.”
Haitz pondered her husband’s incredible thoughtfulness, which involved considerable behind-the-scenes machinations.
“He’s done a very nice job,” she said.
So has the coach. In her eight-plus years. she has molded the Raiders into a perennial regional and state contender while empowering young female athletes.
Haitz has been so successful in her first and only job as head coach that she has earned several coach of the year honors, including Kentucky coach of the year in 2019 when Ryle won the KHSAA Sweet 16 state championship. She has coached the Raiders to three 9th Region titles and five 33rd District crowns.
Haitz was a 1,000-point scorer as a prep. She is a regional champion as a Boone County senior in 2004 while playing for legendary coach Nell Fookes. She was an NAIA Division II All-America at Taylor University. The former Rebel returned to Boone County and assisted Fookes for five years. Haitz took the job at Ryle in 2015.
It could have been a different story. As it turns out, Ryle owes a lot of its success to a back injury. Coach Haitz’s original plan was to become an occupational therapist for children. However, an injured back suffered at Taylor during her junior season scuttled plans. Haitz subsequently went into teaching and contacted Fookes about coaching.
“I’ve had a lot of fortunate experiences with a lot of great coaches, including Nell Fookes, Cheryl Darpel and Tina Krause, my coach at Taylor,” Haitz said. “I never realized how much work Nell did to prepare us for an opponent until I became a head coach.”
Haitz, a biology teacher at Ryle, is recognized with various other awards and honors, including enshrinement in the Northern Kentucky Athletic Directors’ Hall of Fame in 2021.
After this season, she will have sent nearly 20 Ryle basketball players to the college ranks, including Eubank (Belmont University) and fellow seniors Sarah Baker (Youngstown State), Gracie Carrigan (Transylvania) and Rose Miller (Kentucky Christian).
“That’s a great success,” Haitz said. “But my biggest thing is that my players are prepared to go anywhere, whether that be college, trade school, the work force, the military. Whatever it may be, we want our girls to be a success in life.”
