Ex-MSU star Kristin Haynie, who's 'not new to winning,' named Central Michigan women's basketball coach

Joanne P. McCallie arrived at Michigan State in the spring of 2000, as the new head women's basketball coach, and didn't have many local ties. Yet, before she saw a single potential recruit play, she knew the recruit she needed.

Everyone told her who she needed.

Kristin Haynie.

"I wanted to make the right decisions, and right away, people were approaching me about Kristin," McCallie said. "We got her to our camp at Michigan State, and I can specifically remember working with her and watching her, and I was just smiling from ear to ear. And I was like, 'Wow, this one's easy,' in terms of evaluation.

"The community knew before I did."

Haynie, 39, has been making significant impacts on basketball communities all over the state for more than two decades, and now is tasked with turning around Central Michigan women's basketball. She was named the program's 13th head coach Thursday, as two of her mentors — legendary CMU coach Sue Guevara and recently retired Michigan State coach Suzy Merchant — sat in the front row of Thursday's introductory press conference, smiling, like McCallie all those years ago, ear to ear.

Haynie led the Michigan State basketball program to unprecedented heights as a player, including the national championship game in 2005, before winning a WNBA championship as a rookie. Her coaching career has taken her from Eastern Michigan to Central Michigan to Michigan State, where she coached the last four years until Merchant stepped away last month.

Haynie was recently hired as an assistant coach with the WNBA's Minnesota Lynx, before making the journey back home.

She was on Guevara's CMU staff from 2014-17, helping lay the groundwork for the Chippewas team that made its first-ever trip to the NCAA Tournament's Sweet 16 in 2018.

As she took the podium Thursday, Haynie held up one finger — and pledging there will be a whole lot more of that to come.

"This is truly a dream come true," said Haynie, a native of Mason in mid-Michigan. "You will learn that I am less about words and more about actions.

"I'm new to being a head coach, but I'm not new to winning."

At Central Michigan, Haynie replaces Heather Oesterle, another Guevara disciple, who was fired after four seasons as Guevara's successor — two good years, including one NCAA Tournament appearance, and, more recently, two really rough seasons.

It's not the easiest job, turning around a mid-major program.

But Haynie has a background that's filled with adversity, particularly from a health standpoint. In fourth and fifth grade, she missed a lot of class because of polyps that had developed in her intestines. She had surgery, at age 12, to remove her large intestine. Then, as a freshman at Michigan State, she was diagnosed with mononucleosis. As a sophomore and beyond, she battled extreme fatigue, chalking it up to the effects of the bout with mono. But it turned out to date back to the removal of her large intestine, which made it difficult to digest food properly. She was put on a diet that, for a while, had her consuming 4,000 calories a day.

It's easy to look at her college statistics — when she graduated, she was one of just four Big Ten players with 1,000 points, 500 rebounds, 500 assists and 300 steals — and assume things just came easily to her. That wasn't the case. She's had struggles. And McCallie said that, as much as anything, positions her to be a successful head coach.

"I think that's important," McCallie said over the phone Thursday. "They say great players don't make great coaches because they live off their talents, and that's how they are. But Kristin is a coach, she's a players' coach, and she can relate. She can relate to being an outstanding All-American player, and she can relate to adversity that student-athletes go through. She covers all that.

"She has all the traits to be a very successful head coach, and she'll be very relational with the athletes."

Those relationships are bigger than ever these days, with the transfer portal and NIL, McCallie said.

As a college player, Haynie was one of the best guards in the country her senior year, when she averaged 10.8 points, 6.6 rebounds and 5.4 assists, and racked up 117 steals, a Michigan State single-season record that still stands. She is one of three MSU women players to record a triple-double, and the only one to do it in the NCAA Tournament. Michigan State had made the NCAA Tournament just three times, ever, before she arrived as a Spartan in the fall of 2001, then made the NCAA Tournament three times while she was a player, including the magical run to the 2005 national championship game, which it lost to behemoth Baylor. In 2005, Michigan State won 33 games and a Big Ten championship.

Days after her college career ended, Haynie was the ninth overall pick in the WNBA Draft, by the Sacramento Monarchs, which won the championship her rookie season. She played five seasons, and 160 games, in the WNBA, including for the Detroit Shock.

After her WNBA career, she played professionally in Italy, Lithuania, Russia and Greece, before turning to coaching.

She started on staff at Eastern Michigan from 2012-14, then joined Guevara at Central Michigan from 2014-17. While on the sidelines with the Chippewas, she played a key role in developing the best women's basketball player in program history, Presley Hudson, as well as fellow star Micaela "Twin" Kelly, among others.

"We wanted a coach that puts student-athletes first, their well-being, on the court and beyond. Saying this is great, but we saw it in her history," Central Michigan athletic director Amy Folan said. "This is her passion, has been for a long time.

"This is her dream job, and she is our dream coach."

Said Central Michigan president Robert O. Davies: "I cannot wait to see what she does, I cannot wait to see where she goes."

Said Guevara: "Kristin has been at the top, she knows the hard work it takes to get there."

After a brief time away from organized coaching, working as a basketball skills trainer, Haynie then joined Merchant's staff at Michigan State in 2019, and helped lead the Spartans to an NCAA Tournament in 2021.

After a few-week stay on staff with the Minnesota Lynx — after Merchant resigned after 16 seasons and 10 NCAA Tournaments Michigan State head coach, amid health concerns, and was later replaced by Okemos native Robyn Fralick — Haynie landed another job, and her biggest job yet.

"It's only a matter of time before she has the Chippewas hoisting championship banners once again," said Merchant, a Central Michigan alum.

At 39, Haynie becomes the second-youngest Division I women's head coach in the state, after Detroit Mercy's Kate Achter, who soon will turn 37.

Haynie's passion for basketball is almost as old as she is, taking to the game as a kid as an excuse to hang out with her older brother — then getting so hooked, she'd wad up paper balls and shoot at trash baskets when the weather was too bad to play outside.

The game has taken her to great heights, and all over the world. Now, it's brought her home, again.

"I'm excited to start working together,” said Haynie, who was inducted into the Michigan State Hall of Fame in 2017. "Let's get this party started."

In attendance at Thursday's press conference were several other dignitaries, plus several members of Haynie's family, including her parents and grandparents. Also in attendance was Haynie's wife, and one of their two young children. Several holdovers from this past season's Central Michigan women's basketball team also were at the press conference, and Haynie noted it was her game to scout when Michigan State played Central Michigan this past season — and she liked the talent she saw.

The Chippewas have been hit hard by the transfer portal the last two years, though, and have lost out on a recruit who committed shortly before Oesterle was fired after a 50-62 tenure, including 10-48 the last two seasons: Former Western Michigan star guard Lauren Ross has decommitted from Central Michigan.

So hitting the recruiting trail will be a top early priority for Haynie, who hasn't yet announced a coaching staff.

Terms of her contract, including years and dollars, weren't immediately available Thursday.

"Kristin is very driven, extremely competitive and she's willing to do whatever it takes, or whatever she has to do to succeed — and to develop the people around her, as well as develop herself," said McCallie, who left Michigan State in 2007 to become head coach at Duke. "She's in a constant process of learning.

"Her ability to relate with the players and give those players stability is exactly what is needed at this time.

"Kudos to Central Michigan for the hiring of Kristin. I know it's going to be a wonderful experience for the student-athletes."

tpaul@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @tonypaul1984