
Photo by Sarah Finnegan.
Braasch-Hatchett Court will be officially dedicated on Friday, Dec. 2.
The Vestavia Hills High School basketball programs would not have sustained the success they were able to over the past 35 years if not for the contributions of longtime coaches George Hatchett and Fran Braasch.
As a result, the Vestavia Hills basketball gym is being dedicated in honor of the two and will now be named Braasch-Hatchett Court.
A ceremony to dedicate the court will be held on Friday, Dec. 2, as Vestavia Hills hosts Homewood. The girls game tips off at 6 p.m., with the boys game to follow at 7:30 p.m. The ceremony will take place between the two games.
“It’s very fitting for them,” said current Lady Rebels head coach Laura Casey, who played for Braasch in her days as a student at Vestavia.
Hatchett compiled a powerful resume, accumulating over 550 wins in a career that began at Fairfield High School in 1974 and 35 years with the Rebels. He advanced to four Final Fours and won two state championships in 1992 and 2009 and was named the state’s Coach of the Year in both seasons.
"Obviously, George's career speaks for itself," said first-year head coach Patrick Davis, who has embraced the role of following Hatchett at Vestavia. "The program that he was able to build over three-plus decades is incredible.
"George embraced, to me, what is the great thing about how high school sports should be. The idea that you take the kids from your community and compete against the kids from another community. He never took shortcuts to get around that concept," Davis said.
Oak Mountain High School coach Chris Love said the “game of basketball and high school athletics will miss him.”
“He believed in coaching his kids hard no matter their talent level, and getting the best out of them to compete at the highest level,” Love said. “He proved that you can do things the right way and still win.”
Former player for Hatchett and current Greenville High School head coach Stu Stuedeman is another man who holds him in high regard.
“He built the program from the ground up when nobody thought Vestavia would ever win in basketball. He took a chance and accepted the job and built one of the marquee basketball programs in the state of Alabama,” Stuedeman said.
Braasch is a trailblazer in her own right, as well. She started the athletic program at Pizitz Middle School and coached the first women’s basketball team at UAB in 1978-79.
According to her Vestavia Hills Sports Hall of Fame bio, she experienced only one losing season in her tenure as head girls basketball coach at Vestavia from 1983-2006. Her teams compiled an overall record of 512-170 and made regular trips to the state tournament. There were 14 seasons of 20 or more wins, including four with 30 or more wins.
“When I first took this job, she was one of the first people I called,” Casey said. “She and I are very close, so certainly I do talk to her. After being a head coach, you empathize with others and with how hard and how fun it can be.”
The court dedication continues the trend of Vestavia Hills High honoring its legendary coaches. The baseball field is named after Sammy Dunn, leader of the “decade of dominance” teams in the 1990s. The football field is named in honor of current football coach Buddy Anderson.
That list is likely to grow in the future as well.