No woman had ever coached a team to a WPIAL boys basketball championship until Carol Gelet did it at Clairton in 1997 and again in 1998.
Tanya Garner remembers it well. Garner grew up right down the road in West Mifflin and began her coaching career as an assistant with the West Mifflin girls in the fall of 1997.
A quarter-century later, Garner became a WPIAL boys basketball coach just like Gelet, making her only the third female to ever be in such a position.
Garner is now in her third season as head coach at Nazareth Prep, which boasts one of the top teams in WPIAL Class 1A. And if the Saints have their way, Garner will become the second female coach to guide a boys basketball team to a WPIAL title later this winter.
Nazareth Prep, located along Ohio River Boulevard in Emsworth, is having a fantastic season. The Saints won at Aquinas Academy, 87-80, on Tuesday to take sole possession of first place in Section 1. It was the ninth win in the past 10 games for the Saints (10-3 overall, 5-0 in section play), who have had a big bounce-back season after going just 6-13 a season ago. Their only losses have come to teams from larger classifications, a trio of teams that have combined for a record of 36-4 thus far.
“We have a core group of seniors that I think understand that time is running out,” said Garner, who lives in Highland Park. “They’re buying in and supporting each other, and playing with a lot of confidence.”
“I think we can go as far as we truly want to take it,” added guard Mikey Keyes, one of seven seniors on the team.
Like many of his teammates, Keyes said he had never played for a female coach until Garner took over at Nazareth Prep prior to the 2022-23 season.
“So this was something new,” Keyes explained. “But it’s been a good experience. She’s a different type of coach. She knows what buttons to push for us to get into the right mindset.”
Garner, 55, had loads of basketball coaching experience when she came to Nazareth Prep, just not coaching a high school boys team. Garner was an assistant for Phil Shar at West Mifflin, where she won a WPIAL title and coached Tanisha Wright during her legendary career. Wright is now assistant coach for the WNBA’s Chicago Sky. Garner spent five seasons as a Division I college women’s assistant under Dan Durkin at Duquesne. She then began an AAU organization, Pittsburgh Pioneer Elite, which is made up mostly of eighth graders. Garner has coached that team for the past seven or eight years.
In applying for the Nazareth Prep position, Garner saw opportunity and a big challenge. She also saw familiarity, as several players who played for the Saints her first season also played AAU ball for Garner.
“I was very familiar with the kids that were there at that point in time that were student athletes. I knew them from working out individually or AAU-wise,” said Garner, who works as supervisor for UPMC. “I wanted to see if I could challenge myself by being successful and helping kids out on the high school boys side.”
Garner went 9-9 in her first season and 6-13 in her second, qualifying for the playoffs both times. She’s still looking for her first postseason win, though, just as this talented Nazareth Prep team is looking to get back to the WPIAL championship game for the first time since winning their only title in 2019.
Neighborhood Academy is regarded as the “team to beat” in WPIAL Class 1A, but Nazareth Prep may be next in line. The Saints have experience and talent. They also boast what could be one of the WPIAL’s biggest hidden talents in Will Evans, a 6-foot-8 senior center who leads the team with 17.9 points, 10.3 rebounds and 3.4 blocked shots per game. Evans went for a game-high 35 points Tuesday against Aquinas Academy.
“He’s a very versatile 6-8,” Garner said. “He can play inside and out. He can handle the ball. He can shoot the 3, as well as give you post-up action. He’s very tough to guard.”
Evans is tough when he’s defending, too. It has led to several shots by opponents being rejected into the bleachers this season.
“He had one with two hands the other game,” Keyes said.
The presence of Evans, along with 6-5 senior forward Micah Caldwell, gives Nazareth Prep the tallest tandem in Class 1A.
Evans, an all-section choice as a junior, is one of three players scoring in double-figures for the Saints. Senior guard Leon Harrison averages 13.6 points a game, while Keyes averages 10.1 points and 6.2 rebounds.
Nazareth Prep’s most prominent win came against Sewickley Academy, 42-40, on Dec. 6. Sewickley Academy is 9-2 and one of the top teams in Class 2A. Nazareth Prep’s only losses were to Class 6A New Castle (12-1), Class 4A Central Valley (12-2) and Class 2A Neshannock (12-1).
Before she was a coach, Garner was an outstanding player. Garner led the WPIAL in scoring as a senior at West Mifflin in 1987 and graduated as the school’s all-time leading scorer, a mark broken by Wright years later. Garner then went on to star at Penn State, where the 5-foot-7 guard collected 1,538 points and set program records for 3-pointers made and attempted.
It turns out that Garner originally got into coaching because she wanted to coach Wright, who, like Garner, also went on to have an excellent playing career at Penn State.
“I took on coaching because Tanisha was coming through,” Garner said.
Garner has had a lot of important coaching influences, among them her coaches at West Mifflin (Shar) and Penn State (Rene Portland). Garner not only was an assistant for Durkin, but also played for him at Penn State when Durkin was an assistant under Portland. While Garner was at Duquesne, she worked alongside two assistants who played in the NBA — Mike Iuzzolino and Doug West. Coincidentally, Iuzzolino is in his first season coaching Sewickley Academy.
“I’m like a sponge,” Garner said. “If you have something for me to learn, I’m going to take it and try to make the most out of it.”
Just like she’s trying to make the most of her time at Nazareth Prep.
Garner’s assistant coaches are Shaheed Washington and Monica Williams. Washington played at West Mifflin in the early 90s and is a coach with Pittsburgh Pioneer Elite. Williams guided the Winchester Thurston girls to back-to-back WPIAL Class 1A titles in 2017 and 2018.
Keyes said that he and most of his teammates simply refer to Garner as “Coach T.” Among the things Keyes has learned over the past few seasons is that “Coach T” will have some words for you if she doesn’t like the way you’re doing something.
“Oh yeah, she’s good at that,” Keyes said with a chuckle. “She’s good at letting us know what to do and what not to do.”
What Garner wants is for her team to keep working and improving. As long as that happens, she believes that the results will come.
And who knows, maybe it will result in the Saints winning a WPIAL championship, and Garner joining Gelet as the only women to ever lead boys teams to WPIAL titles.
Championships aside, though, Garner said she is simply enjoying herself.
“I’m having a good time,” she said. “I really enjoy my coaching staff. We really work together as a unit. Of course, I’m the captain of the ship, but I can see them standing next to me when I’m steering. We understand we need to win one battle at a time. I think if we play our style of basketball, whoever we go up against is going to have a tough time beating us.”
Brad is a sports writer at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at beverett@unionprogress.com.