Abrahamson-Henderson Fired Up For Return To UGA
March 30, 2022 | Women's Basketball, The Frierson Files
By John Frierson
Staff Writer
Katie Abrahamson-Henderson walked with purpose to the microphone in Stegeman Coliseum on Tuesday afternoon. Georgia's new women's basketball coach exuded confidence and comfort as she was introduced, or re-introduced, to the Lady Bulldogs' fans.
"Hello, everybody. Go Dawgs!" is how "Coach ABE" began her remarks
Abrahamson-Henderson was back in the arena where she'd spent the first two years of her collegiate playing career, from 1985-87, and now she was back to take over the Lady Bulldogs' program and return it to the heights it so often reached in the 1980s and '90s.
A head coach for 17 years, most recently at UCF, where her 2021-22 team went 26-4, won the American Athletic Conference's regular-season and tournament titles, and gave UConn a scare in the second round of the NCAA tournament. With stops at UCF, Albany and Missouri State, Abrahamson-Henderson has a career record of 372-157, with seven conference regular-season titles, nine conference tourney titles and 11 trips to the NCAA tournament.
Abrahamson-Henderson said she believes in winning in basketball, the classroom and in life.
"The No. 1 reason, and I'm going to repeat it, the No. 1 reason I coach is to empower young women — period," she said before asking the players in attendance to stand and be recognized.
"Listen, we all love Georgia basketball, and we all love being Georgia Bulldogs, but no matter what, these are the young women that do it every day," she said. "These are the young women that go to work every day. These are the young women that have to go to classes every day. These are the young women that have to get good grades. They're the ones that do it.
"If we don't have them and they don't love this place, nobody up here has jobs. So I'm always going to make sure we empower them. That's going to be the No. 1 goal. That's what my staff's goal all the time is to do, is to empower them and make them great."
When J. Reid Parker Director of Athletics Josh Brooks went looking for a new coach, one who fits with the family dynamic that Georgia's program has always maintained while also being also to bring the Lady Bulldogs back among the nation's elite, Abrahamson-Henderson was a standout candidate.
"You don't have to compromise one for the other, right? We have the values and things we want in the person to lead this program, but we're not going to sacrifice those things for winning — and thankfully we found a candidate that can bring both, who does things the right way with integrity, because that's a big part of this job," said Brooks, who earlier this month hired Mike White away from Florida to be Georgia's men's basketball coach.
Abrahamson-Henderson and White already have a connection beyond their new employer: Abrahamson-Henderson's old athletic director at UCF was Danny White, Mike White's brother. When Georgia's women's basketball job came open after Joni Taylor left for Texas A&M last week, Abrahamson-Henderson said she got a message from White "that was like 'Come on! Let's go!'"
"It's really cool that we're both coming in here at the same time and I know we're both going to lean on each other for a lot of different things," Abrahamson-Henderson said.
When it comes to Abrahamson-Henderson's preferred style of play, she wants the Lady Bulldogs to play up-tempo, "fast and aggressive," she said.
"That's a key, that word, aggressive. We will recruit those types of versatile players offensively," she said. "We're going to play inside and out. We're not just going to play outside. We're going to play both. So everybody's going to have a role on our team, and they're going to do it really, really well."
Under Abrahamson-Henderson, Georgia is also going to focus very heavily on "lockdown defense." While the 3-pointer may get a lot of attention in basketball these days, she said, the teams that are still playing, that reached the Final Four, they're all capable of shutting you down offensively and winning even on an off shooting night.
"We're going to defend for 40 minutes at an intense level because, in my experience, with all the championship teams I've played, the common theme is lockdown defense," Abrahamson-Henderson said.
Abrahamson-Henderson is just the third full-time head coach in the history of Georgia women's basketball. She played for the program's first true head coach, Andy Landers, from 1985-87, starting 34 games over two seasons, before the Cedar Rapids, Iowa native — feeling homesick, she said Tuesday — decided to transfer home to Iowa, where she played for another legendary coach. C. Vivian Stringer.
Hired in 1979, Landers went on to win 862 games, seven SEC championships, four SEC tournament titles, and he led Georgia to five trips to the Final Four (1983, 1985, 1995, 1996 and 1999), as well as 11 Elite Eights and 20 Sweet 16s. In 2007, he was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame. Landers retired in 2015 having done everything there was to do except win a national championship.
When Landers retired after 36 seasons at Georgia, he was replaced by one of his assistant coaches, Taylor, and in seven seasons she won 65.1% percent of her games, reached the finals of the 2021 SEC tournament and led the Lady Bulldogs to the NCAA tournament four times. Taylor's teams never made it out of the second round, however. Georgia hasn't advanced past the second round since a run to the Elite Eight in 2013.
"When I played here for Coach Landers," Abrahamson-Henderson said, adding that it still didn't feel right to call him Andy, "... our teams were tough, they were aggressive, and they were physical. That will continue."
When asked to describe herself as a player, Abrahamson-Henderson said, "Exactly how my teams play. Just tough and gritty, aggressive and physical. I coach kind of the way I played."
During the 1986-87 season, when Abrahamson-Henderson was a sophomore, she shot a team-high 85.7% from the free-throw line, going 36 of 42. When you're playing alongside Naismith Hall of Famers like Teresa Edwards and Katrina McClain, to lead Georgia in any statistical category is an achievement.
"Our players and coaches will know, when they wear that Georgia logo on the front of their chest, there's honor behind that name because the foundation was set by some of the best basketball players in the world — not in the country, the world," she said.
Abrahamson-Henderson played in 64 games for Georgia, with 34 starts, and averaged 6.9 points per game. She hit 46.2% of her field-goal attempts, went 80.9% from the line, grabbed 3.9 rebounds a game and had nearly 2.0 assists a game.
Abrahamson-Henderson played for Landers and Stringer, two Hall of Fame coaches who have won a combined 1,999 games. She's learned from the best, she's added all that she's learned elsewhere and comes back to Georgia ready to lead, ready to make Georgia women's basketball all that it can be, on and off the court.
She said her top three priorities for her program are family, academics and basketball: F.A.B., as in fabulous. The team is going to be a family, the team is going to shine in the classroom, and the team is going to "always have energy" on the court.
"They're always going to play hard, and they're definitely going to be great teammates. You're going to see them all the time high-fiving each other," she said. "You're going to see them all the time cheering for each other. They're definitely going to be great teammates. Those have always been the way we coached, and that's, to be honest, how we've been really successful."
At her previous stops, Abrahamson-Henderson said, she and her coaching staff had to basically tear everything down to the studs and rebuild the whole thing. That's not the situation they're walking into at Georgia.
"Georgia women's basketball, on the other hand, is a winning program already. It's a winning program already," she said, "so I can only imagine where we could go from here."
Staff Writer
Katie Abrahamson-Henderson walked with purpose to the microphone in Stegeman Coliseum on Tuesday afternoon. Georgia's new women's basketball coach exuded confidence and comfort as she was introduced, or re-introduced, to the Lady Bulldogs' fans.
"Hello, everybody. Go Dawgs!" is how "Coach ABE" began her remarks
Abrahamson-Henderson was back in the arena where she'd spent the first two years of her collegiate playing career, from 1985-87, and now she was back to take over the Lady Bulldogs' program and return it to the heights it so often reached in the 1980s and '90s.
A head coach for 17 years, most recently at UCF, where her 2021-22 team went 26-4, won the American Athletic Conference's regular-season and tournament titles, and gave UConn a scare in the second round of the NCAA tournament. With stops at UCF, Albany and Missouri State, Abrahamson-Henderson has a career record of 372-157, with seven conference regular-season titles, nine conference tourney titles and 11 trips to the NCAA tournament.
Abrahamson-Henderson said she believes in winning in basketball, the classroom and in life.
"The No. 1 reason, and I'm going to repeat it, the No. 1 reason I coach is to empower young women — period," she said before asking the players in attendance to stand and be recognized.
"Listen, we all love Georgia basketball, and we all love being Georgia Bulldogs, but no matter what, these are the young women that do it every day," she said. "These are the young women that go to work every day. These are the young women that have to go to classes every day. These are the young women that have to get good grades. They're the ones that do it.
"If we don't have them and they don't love this place, nobody up here has jobs. So I'm always going to make sure we empower them. That's going to be the No. 1 goal. That's what my staff's goal all the time is to do, is to empower them and make them great."
When J. Reid Parker Director of Athletics Josh Brooks went looking for a new coach, one who fits with the family dynamic that Georgia's program has always maintained while also being also to bring the Lady Bulldogs back among the nation's elite, Abrahamson-Henderson was a standout candidate.
"You don't have to compromise one for the other, right? We have the values and things we want in the person to lead this program, but we're not going to sacrifice those things for winning — and thankfully we found a candidate that can bring both, who does things the right way with integrity, because that's a big part of this job," said Brooks, who earlier this month hired Mike White away from Florida to be Georgia's men's basketball coach.
Abrahamson-Henderson and White already have a connection beyond their new employer: Abrahamson-Henderson's old athletic director at UCF was Danny White, Mike White's brother. When Georgia's women's basketball job came open after Joni Taylor left for Texas A&M last week, Abrahamson-Henderson said she got a message from White "that was like 'Come on! Let's go!'"
"It's really cool that we're both coming in here at the same time and I know we're both going to lean on each other for a lot of different things," Abrahamson-Henderson said.
When it comes to Abrahamson-Henderson's preferred style of play, she wants the Lady Bulldogs to play up-tempo, "fast and aggressive," she said.
"That's a key, that word, aggressive. We will recruit those types of versatile players offensively," she said. "We're going to play inside and out. We're not just going to play outside. We're going to play both. So everybody's going to have a role on our team, and they're going to do it really, really well."
Under Abrahamson-Henderson, Georgia is also going to focus very heavily on "lockdown defense." While the 3-pointer may get a lot of attention in basketball these days, she said, the teams that are still playing, that reached the Final Four, they're all capable of shutting you down offensively and winning even on an off shooting night.
"We're going to defend for 40 minutes at an intense level because, in my experience, with all the championship teams I've played, the common theme is lockdown defense," Abrahamson-Henderson said.
Abrahamson-Henderson is just the third full-time head coach in the history of Georgia women's basketball. She played for the program's first true head coach, Andy Landers, from 1985-87, starting 34 games over two seasons, before the Cedar Rapids, Iowa native — feeling homesick, she said Tuesday — decided to transfer home to Iowa, where she played for another legendary coach. C. Vivian Stringer.
Hired in 1979, Landers went on to win 862 games, seven SEC championships, four SEC tournament titles, and he led Georgia to five trips to the Final Four (1983, 1985, 1995, 1996 and 1999), as well as 11 Elite Eights and 20 Sweet 16s. In 2007, he was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame. Landers retired in 2015 having done everything there was to do except win a national championship.
When Landers retired after 36 seasons at Georgia, he was replaced by one of his assistant coaches, Taylor, and in seven seasons she won 65.1% percent of her games, reached the finals of the 2021 SEC tournament and led the Lady Bulldogs to the NCAA tournament four times. Taylor's teams never made it out of the second round, however. Georgia hasn't advanced past the second round since a run to the Elite Eight in 2013.
"When I played here for Coach Landers," Abrahamson-Henderson said, adding that it still didn't feel right to call him Andy, "... our teams were tough, they were aggressive, and they were physical. That will continue."
When asked to describe herself as a player, Abrahamson-Henderson said, "Exactly how my teams play. Just tough and gritty, aggressive and physical. I coach kind of the way I played."
During the 1986-87 season, when Abrahamson-Henderson was a sophomore, she shot a team-high 85.7% from the free-throw line, going 36 of 42. When you're playing alongside Naismith Hall of Famers like Teresa Edwards and Katrina McClain, to lead Georgia in any statistical category is an achievement.
"Our players and coaches will know, when they wear that Georgia logo on the front of their chest, there's honor behind that name because the foundation was set by some of the best basketball players in the world — not in the country, the world," she said.
Abrahamson-Henderson played in 64 games for Georgia, with 34 starts, and averaged 6.9 points per game. She hit 46.2% of her field-goal attempts, went 80.9% from the line, grabbed 3.9 rebounds a game and had nearly 2.0 assists a game.
Abrahamson-Henderson played for Landers and Stringer, two Hall of Fame coaches who have won a combined 1,999 games. She's learned from the best, she's added all that she's learned elsewhere and comes back to Georgia ready to lead, ready to make Georgia women's basketball all that it can be, on and off the court.
She said her top three priorities for her program are family, academics and basketball: F.A.B., as in fabulous. The team is going to be a family, the team is going to shine in the classroom, and the team is going to "always have energy" on the court.
"They're always going to play hard, and they're definitely going to be great teammates. You're going to see them all the time high-fiving each other," she said. "You're going to see them all the time cheering for each other. They're definitely going to be great teammates. Those have always been the way we coached, and that's, to be honest, how we've been really successful."
At her previous stops, Abrahamson-Henderson said, she and her coaching staff had to basically tear everything down to the studs and rebuild the whole thing. That's not the situation they're walking into at Georgia.
"Georgia women's basketball, on the other hand, is a winning program already. It's a winning program already," she said, "so I can only imagine where we could go from here."
Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
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