By Sabreena Burks
Student Reporter
ollowing a family tradition is something that can be passed down from parent to child, which is certainly the case for Northwestern’s women’s basketball coach.
Tasha Turney Diesselhorst is beginning her third season as the coach of the NWOSU women’s basketball team.
She came to the basketball program when it wasn’t doing as good as it is today. When the past coach left, Diesselhorst got to know the girls on the team and became their head coach thus having a great season. She grew up in northwest Oklahoma and has been around her basektball coaching through her family all her life.
Her parents went to school at Northwestern Oklahoma State University, so she was familiar with the campus before she came.
What got Diesselhorst into coaching basketball was her father along with her love for the sport, also the fact that she comes from a long line of coaches.
Her father was a basketball coach for several northwest schools including coaching her at Medford High School. Her grandfather was a legendary basketball coach at Balko High school in the Panhandle, and even her sister is a basketball coach in Chisholm High School.
While in college, she and her husband Adam, whom she was dating at the time, were part of a basketball camp. There she met Shane Hansen, who now teaches at NWOSU, but the two didn’t know that they would end up seeing each other again years later.
“We met at the frontier basketball camps where she and I were both coaching the kids,” Hansen said. “Her father and my grandfather were friends for a long time, and so I got to know the Turney family. I knew that when she came to Northwestern, she would be able to help our girls into great shape for the season.”
While in attending Oklahoma Christian University, she had an amazing basketball career by leading her team to four straight NAIA National Tournaments. She graduated with a degree in physical education, and earned the President Medal for having the highest grades in 2006.
“While I was getting my masters, I coached the JV team there at Oklahoma Christian University for one year and after that I was 23 and decided to go and look for a job and ended up at Pond Creek for nine years before coming to Northwestern,” she explained.
While coaching at Pond Creek, she saw her team qualify for the state tournament in 2013 and 2015, become runner up in 2016 and win the Class A state tournament in 2014. In total of her coaching success in at Pond Creek-Hunter, her team had seven straight Skeltur Conference Championships, an undefeated streak of 49-0 in the conference play and a record of 170-29 record. along with coaching four all-state players and 10 all-conference selections thus completing an overall record of 187-93.
Her biggest supporter is her husband Adam. He works for a marketing company and he knew that she wanted to be a basketball coach, “We met through mutual friends when I was out of high school about to go into college, he is from Fairview, Oklahoma and we hit it off from that.” Currently the couple lives in Enid, Oklahoma.
Along the way, she has become a great friend and coach to those around her. She has a good friendship with one of her assistant coaches, Kylie Franz, and one of her basketball players, senior Jade Jones.
“I knew her through Jade when we played basketball at Southwestern,” Franz said. “I got to know her through that, and when I heard she got the job here at Northwestern, she asked me if I wanted to be her grad assistant and I said, ‘Yeah, of course’ because my husband was already here so I wanted to be here with him and it worked out.”
Jones knew Diesselhorst from high school and was surprised to hear she was at Northwestern.
“I was playing at Southwestern at the time,” she said, “and when I heard that she got the job at Northwestern, I decided to transfer and play for her again.”
It was like being reunited with an old friend again. “I was excited to be playing for her again because I enjoyed playing for her in high school,” Jones said.
Diesselhorst and the players agree on a lot of things, she understands how the team plays and what they can do out on the court.
Men’s coach Shawn Dirden said he sees Diesselhorst practicing with her team and how she handles things when the two teams travel together to away games. “I think from the guys side of things, she is doing a phenomenal job when we travel to double headers,” he said. “It’s a healthy relationship with the girls’ basketball team and their coach,”
Diesselhorst achieved a lot of success on the court, during her basketball career at Oklahoma Christian. She led her team to four straight NAIA National Tournament appearances; in 2005 she earned the all-America honors and was selected for the All-Sooner Athletic Conference in her final three years in college. She ranked in the top 10 all-time leading scorers in the school’s history.
As a coach she has been a winner. She was selected as Skeltur Conference Coach of the Year seven times during her coaching at Pond Creek-Hunter. In 2014, she was named coach of the year by the Enid News & Eagle and CTB Sports, the same year she was named the Oklahoma Coaches Association Region 1 Coach of the Year and the Oklahoma Girls Basketball Coaches Association All-State Coach. In 2015, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes named her its Northwest Coach of the Year.
Aside from working with the team on the court, Diesselhorst is also a great friend off the court. She works with students she meets from Fellowship of Christian Athletes, from the high school where she used to coach or from a class she teaches.
Students say she is a great listener who can see if there is something wrong and then help fix it.
Dirden said he appreciates what she does for Ranger athletics. “In a way, I feel at ease as we watch the girls play [first},” he said. “When they win, it is like they are helping the guys out to be ready for their game.”