Head Coach Rick Reeves, a four-time Big South Coach of the Year (1992-93, 1996-97, 1997-98, 2009-10) is entering his 14th season overall at the helm of the Gardner-Webb University Women’s Basketball program in 2017-18.Â
Reeves came to Boiling Springs after spending five seasons as the head women’s basketball coach at Southern Mississippi. Prior to his arrival at Southern Miss. in 1999-2000, Reeves was named the Big South Conference Coach of the Year three times and the State Coach of the Year in Virginia once during his nine year tenure from 1990-99 directing the Liberty Lady Flames’ program in Lynchburg, Va.
Reeves, who has a tremendous history of rebuilding NCAA Division-I programs during his 30 years of collegiate coaching, has taken his teams to the postseason six times at the Division I level - including taking GWU to its first-ever NCAA postseason appearance in 2010-11, the WNIT in 2009-10, Southern Miss to the WNIT in 1999-2000, and three-straight trips to the NCAA Tournament at Liberty University (1997-1999) in which his Liberty teams combined to post a 71-16 record overall over that three year span.
In the 2015-16 season, Reeves led the Runnin’ Bulldogs to the program’s first-ever win over a ranked program, earning a 66-65 win over #20 North Carolina in the season-opener on November 13, 2015. GWU finished the season with a 19-12 mark, holding opponents to just 59.4 points per game, the team’s best defensive mark since the 2012-13 season. Seniors Olivia Parker and Candace Brown each earned first-team All-Big South Conference honors – the first for a GWU player since Dominique Hudson did so in 2010-11.
As the all-time career wins leader in Gardner-Webb’s Women’s Basketball history with 197 career victories, Reeves recorded his 400th career win with the Runnin’ Bulldogs’ 55-38 home win over Presbyterian College on February 7, 2013.
On November 11, 2010, Coach Reeves became the women’s basketball all-time career wins leader with his 98th win at GWU, which he followed up only two games later with his 100th career win while at GWU on December 5, 2010.
Over his time at Gardner-Webb University, Reeves has taken a program that won a combined 13 games over its first three years as an NCAA Division-I member (2001-04) prior to his arrival, to its first-ever NCAA Women’s Basketball National Championship Tournament appearance in 2010-11 and its first-ever WNIT postseason tournament in 2009-10.
Gardner-Webb also recorded its first-ever Big South Championship in 2010-11, defeating No. 1 seeded Liberty in the Championship game 67-66, one-year after running through the League in 2009-10 to win the program’s first-ever Big South Regular Season Championship with a stellar 15-1 conference record.
The Runnin’ Bulldogs have also received national attention under Reeves, as the 2009-10 team received votes in the ESPN/USA TodayTop-25 Coaches Poll for 15 weeks out of the season, receiving as many as 15 votes overall on three different occasions.
In fact, Reeves’ 2009-10 team posted 28 wins overall for the year, which not only set a new school record for the most victories in a single season by a GWU women’s basketball team in its history, but also tied the record for the most wins for a Big South Conference team in the history of the Big South. The 2010-11 team followed with 23 wins overall the next year in 2010-11 to give the Runnin’ Bulldogs’ its first back-to-back 20 win seasons in the program’s history.
His teams have set the new Gardner-Webb Division-I school record for the most wins in a single season four different times, first in 2004-05 with nine wins, again a season later in 2005-06 with 14 wins, once more in 2008-09 with 17 wins and then one more time in 2009-10 with 28 victories.
Reeves has taken the Runnin’ Bulldogs to three Big South Championship games (2009, 2010 & 2011) and has lead his teams to a total of four Big South Championships overall during his time at both Liberty and Gardner-Webb.
Reeves has guided his teams to three Big South Regular Season Championships (1997-98, 1998-99, 2009-10), four Big South Tournament Championships (1996-97, 1997-98, 1998-99, 2010-11), six Big South Tournament Championship game appearances (1996-97, 1997-98, 1998-99, 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11) and a total of eight conference tournament championship title games overall (6 Big South, 1 Atlantic Sun, 1 Conference USA) as a head coach at the NCAA Division I level since 1990-91.Â
Under his tutelage at Gardner-Webb, Reeves has seen nine players surpass the 1,000 career points mark in Dominique Hudson (1,407), Margaret Roundtree (1,337), Catrina Green (1,241), Olivia Parker (1230), Candace Brown (1229), Sequenta Blackman (1,195), Monique Hudson (1,147), Shameka Smith (1,136), and Jasmine Dale (1057), while eight student-athletes have hauled in over 500 career rebounds in Green (1012), Smith (992), Parker (919), Roundtree (789), Brown (785), Brittany Harmon (725), LaTroya Pope (656) and Crissy Guzman (559).
Reeves has coached twelve Big South All-Conference selections, two Big South All-Freshman honorees, and seven Big South All-Tournament recipients since the Runnin’ Bulldogs joined the Conference in 2008-09, as well as the 2009-10 Big South Women’s Basketball Player of the Year in Margaret Roundtree.
Prior to Gardner-Webb moving to the Big South in 2008, Reeves mentored three Atlantic Sun All-Conference selections and four A-Sun All-Freshman Team members in four seasons from 2004-08.
As a testament to Reeves’ positive influence as a coach on the collegiate level, over 80 former players have gone into the coaching ranks following graduation - with those players on coaching staffs in the Big East, SEC, Big South, Conference USA, Missouri Valley, MAC, Sun Belt and Southern Conference, among others.
Reeves, a 1981 graduate of Indiana State University, earned a master’s degree from Western Kentucky in 1985. He landed his first collegiate head coaching position at Brescia (Ky.) College in 1985, and was the school’s first head women’s basketball coach, starting the program from scratch with 15 freshmen on his roster. From there Reeves went to Cumberland (Tenn.) University in 1986, and led the team to three top-20 finishes at the NAIA level before moving on to an assistant’s position at the University of Florida in 1989-90.
Reeves is married to the former Ramona Parnell of Columbia, Ky. The couple has two daughters, Kim Brewton, a former GWU assistant coach and current assistant coach at Middle Tennessee State, and Krystal Reeves-Evans, former GWU assistant and current head coach at Lincoln Memorial (Tenn.) College. The Reeves’ also have six grandchildren in Grace, Kalyn, Braylee, Britton, Brielle, and Gabriel.
