North Carolina’s Hatchell reaches major milestone during trip to Myrtle Beach

Sylvia Hatchell is often asked what she hasn’t done during her coaching career.

Scratch “winning 1,000 games as a coach” off that short list.

The longtime North Carolina women’s basketball coach earned the 1,000th win of her career on Tuesday, her Tar Heel squad downing Grambling State, 79-63.

Prior to a few weeks ago, Hatchell said she wasn’t putting much credence into her soon approaching date with history. However, speaking with former players helped her put the milestone in perspective.

“Numbers don’t mean that much to me,” Hatchell said during a postgame press conference. “I just want to win the next game, and how we’re performing and how we grade out on the grade sheet.

“Here lately, I’ve been hearing from so many former players, so many of them were here today from Francis Marion and (North Carolina). I don’t know how many … maybe 100 of them were out there. I saw them and they all bring back memories and flashbacks.”

Hatchell’s first foray into the coaching ranks was at Francis Marion, where she served for 11 seasons. In that time, she led the Patriots to the 1982 AIAW championship and the NAIA title four years later.

“When I tell them I drove the bus, swept the floor, and washed the uniforms and all that stuff, (players) look at me like I have four heads,” she said. “But you do it because you love it, and I still love it so much.”

Hatchell said the plan was for her time in the coaching ranks to be short-lived. “I planned to go back and get my doctorate. … Eventually I learned I liked coaching and was good at it, so I stuck with coaching.”

Shortly after winning the 1986 NAIA title, Hatchell was named women’s basketball coach at North Carolina. During her tenure, she has led the Tar Heels to a total of 12 ACC titles – four regular season championships and eight conference tourney wins.

North Carolina has also advanced to three appearances in the Women’s Final Four, winning it all in 1994. Hatchell has also been named national Coach of the Year twice times (1994, 2006) and is a member of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.

But Hatchell’s biggest win wasn’t once decided on the hardwood, instead coming in the form of beating leukemia. In much the same way she coaches, the North Carolina women’s coach also took on the debilitating disease.

“I’m not a good loser … I’ve never been good at losing,” she said. “But there’s so many things beside winning – and winning’s important – but the last few years have made me see how blessed I am.

“We are blessed so we can bless others. So every day I open my eyes I just think ‘where are the opportunities I’m going to have today?’ Whether it be for the University of North Carolina or my players. That’s really what motivates me.”

Hatchell said she is now “100 percent” cancer-free. Given a clean bill of health, she hopes to use her time and energy to again make North Carolina among the more feared programs in women’s college basketball.

And if given the chance, one of her former players believes there will be nothing that stops her from accomplishing it.

“She’s going to keep fighting, she’s never going to give up,” said former North Carolina women’s basketball standout Ivory Latta. “She still has more wins to go, and I’m going to be here for every game.”

This story was originally published December 19, 2017 at 3:56 PM with the headline "North Carolina’s Hatchell reaches major milestone during trip to Myrtle Beach."