Girls Varsity basketball coach Dawn Hahn has been a coach at FHN for the past decade as both a head coach for eight years and assistant coach for two. Last season Hahn moved from Assistant Coach to Head Coach mid-season which created some chaos for the team, but was easily handled. This change was ultimately beneficial for the team, because it helped prepare the players to adapt and overcome and have a much better season this year. Senior Patty O’Leary has played for the basketball team for the past four years and saw the impact Hahn made on the team this season.

“She basically had to turn the whole program around, because when she was the Assistant Coach last year she didn’t get to do everything exactly as she wanted to,” O’Leary said. “When she actually got in total control of the program she turned it around and made it better that it had been for many years prior.”

Throughout her 10 years coaching Hahn has developed strong relationships with players on and off the court. Sophomore Becka Brissette has known Hahn since third grade, when she met her at a basketball camp she was attending at FHN, who later that year became her coach.

“Coach Hahn is like a second mom to me and she is a great person to be around,” Brissette said. “She always supports and encourages me with anything I set my mind to and she is always someone I know I can count on to be there for me.”

Varsity coaching is a large time commitment that involves creating practice plans, watching hours of game film, setting up big discussions and preparing players for the game which ultimately takes away personal time, but the end result it rewarding. Hahn has a different coaching experience than most which makes the final season harder, because her daughter is also a player on the team which is one of the things she is going to miss most when she is not coaching.

“I am going to miss the people and relationships I have built over the past seasons,” Hahn said. “But I am also going to miss coaching my daughter, because since second grade that has been something we have had to share together. It will be awesome to see how our relationship changes, but I will miss it, because it is something not a whole lot of people have and I feel very lucky that I had a chance to coach her.”