Eastern’s Hodgins boasts basketball heritage

This week's women's basketball notebook features Eastern Washington's Hayley Hodgins, whose basketball pedigree is impressive. Read more

The Hodgins household can't get enough basketball.

Dad Michael coaches the AAU team Sagebrush Hoops and runs basketball clinics in which all of the family members help out. He's been coaching AAU since Hayley was a toddler.

Karen still likes to play open gym games, with coaching advice from her hubby. Before Michael coached Karen in Europe, he coached men's teams on the continent.

“I would love to go play over there some day,” Hayley said. “It's more about the experience of it.”

Michael attends Hayley's home games while Karen, who works nights at a Pasco post office, attends her younger daughters' home games and texts updates to the family in Cheney.

“It's interesting to hear my dad's perspective on things,” Hayley said. “He would never step on my coaches' toes. He knows every coach has their own philosophy. He would never undermine my coaches.”

Michael, who went to Blanchet High and Seattle University, has also served as a basketball scout.

Hayley said she wasn't surprised to start the season out of the starting lineup, especially since she redshirted last year.

“Before I started, technically I was getting more minutes than starters sometimes anyway,” she said.

“We have so many different lineup possibilities. … Having (the starting lineup) up in the air kind of makes everyone work harder.”

Many people knew of Hayley's Big Sky weekly award before she did, because she doesn't have a Twitter account.

“My teammates were like, 'Congratulations,' and I was like, 'For what?' But I was very honored.”

Hayley said she's focusing on improving her defense and “letting the game come to me” instead of trying to force play.

She plans to major in health services administration. She was originally interested in nursing, but her basketball makes that difficult to achieve.