Georgetown ladies’s basketball coach Tasha Butts died Monday after a two-year battle with breast most cancers, the varsity’s athletic director mentioned.
The 41-year-old coach was recognized with superior stage breast most cancers in 2021. She stepped away from teaching Georgetown final month. Her prognosis impressed the Tasha Robust marketing campaign which has introduced consciousness and raised cash to deliver high quality care to ladies who can’t afford it by means of the Kay Yow Most cancers Fund.
“I’m heartbroken for Tasha’s household, buddies, gamers, teammates and colleagues,” mentioned Georgetown athletic director Lee Reed. “Once I met Tasha, I knew she was a winner on the courtroom, and an unbelievable individual whose drive, ardour and willpower was second to none. She exhibited these qualities each as a pacesetter and in her struggle in opposition to breast most cancers. It is a tough time for your complete Georgetown neighborhood, and we’ll come collectively to honor her reminiscence.”
She got here to Georgetown from Georgia Tech this previous April after an extended teaching {and professional} WNBA profession. She joined the Georgia Tech ladies’s basketball workers as an assistant coach in April 2019, and was promoted to affiliate head coach two years later.
“The information of Tasha’s passing is extremely unhappy,” Georgia Tech coach Nell Fortner mentioned. “Tasha was so instrumental to the success of this program. What she did as a member of this teaching workers can’t be undervalued. She was robust — robust on her children, robust in her expectations, however but she was tender beneath when gamers wanted her to be there for them, and he or she was all the time there for them.”
Whereas at Georgia Tech in 2021, Butts introduced she had been recognized with superior stage metastatic breast most cancers.
“Tasha’s passing is a devastating loss. She was extraordinary,” Georgetown president John J. DeGioia mentioned. “Tasha was an individual of character, willpower, imaginative and prescient, and kindness. She shall be deeply missed by our neighborhood and by so many individuals across the nation who’ve been impressed by her life.”
When Butts stepped away final month, Georgetown named assistant Darnell Haney because the interim head coach. He mentioned final week that he had been in fixed contact with Butts whereas she was present process therapy.
“We saved her updated with what’s occurring with this system. Shoot her a textual content on how follow went, how issues are going within the convention,” he mentioned. “Do stuff to make her smile and maintain her thoughts off what was she was going by means of. We’d ship her movie from follow.”
Groups throughout the nation would submit movies on social media each Tuesday throughout October to attempt to carry Butts’ spirits and remind her she wasn’t alone within the struggle in opposition to most cancers.
Earlier than teaching at Georgia Tech, Butts was an assistant first at Duquesne, UCLA and LSU. She spent eight seasons with the Tigers.
“Tasha was an amazing participant and went on to have a profitable profession as a coach too,” mentioned LSU coach Kim Mulkey. “Extra importantly, she had an affect on so many lives all through her lifetime. We’re unhappy to lose her at such a younger age.”
Butts starred at Tennessee from 2000-04, taking part in for Corridor of Fame coach Pat Summitt. The Woman Vols went 124-17 together with her taking part in and superior to the NCAA championship recreation in 2003 and 04. She was a part of 4 SEC regular-season championship groups on the faculty.
“Our program is heartbroken to lose a member of our Woman Vol sisterhood a lot, a lot too quickly,” Tennessee coach Kellie Harper. “Tasha was the kind of one that related with individuals all over the place she went. She had such a optimistic affect not solely on our Tennessee household however on ladies’s basketball as a complete.”
She had a short profession within the WNBA after getting chosen twentieth by the Minnesota Lynx within the 2004 draft. She performed for Minnesota, Charlotte and Houston.
Butts is survived by her dad and mom Spencer, Sr. and Evelyn, her brother Spencer, Jr. and her nephew Marquis.
AP ladies’s school basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball