Head coach Melissa Hearlihy is shown after team at Harvard-Westlake won the CIF D2 state title last March in Sacramento. Photo: Mark Tennis.
State’s second winningest girls hoops coach on the all-time list announced on Monday she will be joining the winningest head coach on the sidelines starting this season.
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Around noon on Monday, Harvard-Westlake of Studio City girls basketball head coach Melissa Hearlihy gathered her team and proudly announced that after all these years she had “finally graduated from high school after 40 years.”
The girls stared whooping it up and cheering for their coach not really understanding that this graduation was a bit different than the one the California native had from Alvin High in Texas, or even her college graduation in 1983 from the University of San Francisco where she starred as a power forward.
This graduation comes in the form of the retirement of Hearlihy from the ranks of girls’ high school basketball coaches.
“Telling the team was very emotional,” Hearlihy remarked. “And I thought telling them that way would soften things but they didn’t really understand until I actually told them I was retiring today.”
Hearlihy addresses the media after her team won a CIF D4 state title in 2010. Did she wear the same shirt in 2024? Photo: Mark Tennis.
“It’s time,” continued the 62-year old Hearlihy. “There is really nothing left for me to
accomplish.”
Along the way, Hearlihy amassed 839 career coaching wins in 39 years of coaching, 15 at Bishop Alemany (West Hills) and 24 at Harvard-Westlake, two CIF state championships, both at Harvard-Westlake, including the 2023 Division II state championship, seven CIF Southern Section championships, three at Bishop Alemany and four at Harvard-Westlake.
The 839 career coaching wins currently places Hearlihy at No. 2 all time in the Golden State according to the Cal-Hi Sports Online Record Book. Number one on the list is Kevin Kiernan of Santa Ana Mater with 900 career victories.
Ironically, Kiernan announced his retirement at the end of the season meaning No. 1 and No. 2 all time have retired. This leaves Sue Phillips of Archbishop Mitty (San Jose) as the leading active head coach with 819 career wins.
After her Wolverines won the Division IV state championship, Hearlihy was named the 2010 Cal-Hi Sports State Coach of the Year. When it came time to write that story at the time, research showed Hearlihy was not on the list of all-time winningest coaches in the record book even though at the time she had been coaching since 1986 and almost assuredly had 500 career wins and would qualify for the list.
When she went back and reviewed her coaching record, low and behold it showed she had 553 victories, and the rest is history.
In 2023, after Harvard-Westlake was eliminated in the third round of the CIF Southern Section playoffs, Hearlihy was driving on the freeway in Los Angeles when she got a call from a woman saying she represented the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association.
“I thought it was about wanting to use our gym like they have in the past,” Hearlihy said. “But then she said she wanted to be the one to congratulate me on being named the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association National High School Coach of the Year.
“I thought ‘oh my god’ and asked her to repeat what she had said,” Hearlihy continued. “I had no idea who nominated me or who voted for me but I was so humbled. This was the highest award I could win, and as a team we didn’t really win anything.”
The WBCA was a year early.
After a slew of injuries to begin the season that resulted in an 0-4 start and a 4-12 record going into Mission League action and an opener with powerhouse Sierra Canyon (Chatsworth) that left them at 4-13, somehow Hearlihy got Harvard-Westlake turned around and the girls finished 19-18 in a season that culminated in 60-45 victory over Colfax in the CIF Division II state championship title game.
“For us to come back the next year after my winning that prestigious honor, and after such a terrible and troubling start, and then to win a state championship, God had to be smiling on us,” Hearlihy said.
Soon after graduating from the University of San Francisco, Hearlihy accepted a grad assistant position with Billie Moore at UCLA before coming to Alemany in 1984 to coach junior varsity.
In 1986, she took the varsity reins at Alemany and after a very successful stint there moved on to Harvard-Westlake where she also taught physical education with a master’s degree in the field.
“In my first four years and right after I got my masters I seriously considered coaching in college, and people still ask me why I didn’t move on to college,” Hearlihy remarked back in 2010. “This is the epitome of why I coach high school, for the life’s lessons, and to watch the girls trust and care about each other.”
Last month during the Girls of Summer Caravan stop at Seal Beach we called Hearlihy after seeing 2029 Lucia Khamenia perform. The younger sister of Nik Khamenia, a 6-foot-8 incoming senior forward for CIF Open Division state champion and Cal-Hi Sports No. 1 Harvard-Westlake, is ticketed to play for the Wolverines and we wanted to let Hearlihy know how impressed we were with her play.
During the call, she told us she had moved to Huntington Harbor and was enjoying living on the water and playing golf, but the commute to the San Fernando Valley was a tough one. That could have been a hint.
“I’m planning on staying on some of the committees and still helping the CIF Southern Section if they still want me, I’m happy help,” Hearlihy said.
“I might like to coach golf for little kids but I’m done coaching basketball,” Hearlihy continued. “I’m trading in the big orange ball for a little white one.”
Congratulations Melissa Hearlihy on a storied career as one of the greatest coaches in the history of California girls’ basketball, and good luck on the links.
Harold Abend is the associate editor of CalHiSports.com and the vice president of the California Prep Sportswriters Association. He can be reached at marketingharoldabend@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow him on Twitter: @HaroldAbend
