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Men's Basketball

Men's Basketball

Eagle

Men's Basketball Coaches/Staff

Dan Hays

Dan Hays

Head Coach

dan.hays@oc.edu

With close to 700 victories in his coaching career, Dan Hays begins his 27th year at the helm of the Eagles. Hays ranks as the winningest coach in Oklahoma Christian history with a 549-298 record.


He earned his 500th win at OC on the first day of the 2006-07 season (a 97-39 Homecoming victory over Oklahoma Wesleyan) and now owns a 687-407 overall career record.


The Eagles have won six of their 10 Sooner Athletic Conference championships during Hays’ tenure. He has led Oklahoma Christian to seven NAIA tournaments, advancing to the Sweet 16 in five of those seasons.


Hays was inducted into the NAIA Hall of Fame at the 1998 national tournament and became a member of the Oklahoma Christian Athletic Hall of Fame in ceremonies on February 21, 2002. He was selected for the athletic hall of fame at Eastern New Mexico University, his alma mater, in 1996.


Hays has left his mark as a successful coach both on and off the court. In addition to coaching the Eagles to 20+ wins in 17 of the past 25 seasons, Hays has seen more than 90 percent of the seniors in his program complete their degrees. The last few years have also seen squads designated as NAIA Scholar Teams due to high cumulative GPA's.


Hays also served as director of Oklahoma Christian’s acclaimed Cage Camp program from 1984 to 2006.

In 1998, Hays, the NAIA representative to the USA Basketball Men’s Collegiate Committee, served as an assistant to Jim Boeheim of Syracuse University (N.Y.) on the USA Basketball Junior World Championship Team, which won the gold medal in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.


Hays also was an assistant to the University of Florida’s Lon Kruger for the 1991 gold medal-winning USA team at the World Championships for Junior Men in Edmonton, Canada, and at the 1990 U.S. Olympic Festival in Minneapolis, Minn. Hays served as president of the NAIA Coaches Association from 1991 to 1993.


He has earned Sooner Athletic Conference Coach of the Year honors five times (1985, 1986, 1989, 1999, 2005) and NAIA District IX Coach of the Year honors twice (1981, 1985).


Hays came to Oklahoma Christian after five seasons as head coach at Northwestern Oklahoma State University. Hays was 71-68 at NWOSU and led his team to the NAIA District Nine Semifinals in the 1981-82 and 1982-83 seasons. His 1980-81 squad won the Oklahoma Intercollegiate Conference Championship; he received OIC Coach of the Year honors in both 1981 and 1983.


Before becoming a head coach, Hays served as an assistant coach at Southeastern Oklahoma State University for three seasons and at Eastern Washington University for one year. He also coached for six years at the high school level in Grants and Roswell, N.M., guiding four teams to the New Mexico State Tournament.


Hays is a 1964 graduate of Highland High School in Albuquerque, N.M. He attended Casper (Wyo.) Junior College for one year before transferring to Eastern New Mexico. At ENMU, Hays was All-American Honorable Mention for two years and was named to the NAIA and NCAA All-District teams twice. He was the MVP and leading scorer on Coach Harry Miller’s first two nationally-ranked Greyhound teams.


After graduating in 1968, Hays spent several years in the AAU leagues, played in three national tournaments and was selected to the AAU All-Stars that played against the Soviet Union in 1971.
The 62-year-old Hays holds master’s degrees from Eastern New Mexico (physical education) and Eastern Washington (athletic administration).


His wife, JoAnn (Willoughby), is from Lovington, N.M. She holds a master’s degree in Reading from Southeastern Oklahoma State University and a master’s degree in Gifted Education from Northwestern Oklahoma State University. She has earned teacher of the year honors in Alva, Okla. (1983), and at Putnam City’s Will Rogers Elementary School (1985), Edmond’s Summit Middle School (1990), and Edmond’s Santa Fe High School (2001). She is now retired from the Edmond Public Schools.


The couple has two daughters, Michelle and Stacie, and four grandchildren. Michelle and her husband David Lynn have two children: daughter Mackenzie and son Danny. Stacie and her husband Charlie Michael have two sons: Cale and Tate.

 

Terril Hankins

Terril Hankins

Assistant Coach

Terril Hankins begins his eighth season on the Oklahoma Christian staff. His responsibilities include academic advising, recruiting and scouting, on the floor coaching, individual player development, and is over team film exchange. Hankins is also a physical education teacher at OC.


The 34-year-old Hankins is a native of Wilburton, Okla., and a 1999 graduate of East Central University (Okla.). From 2001 to 2004, he served as assistant basketball coach at Bishop McGuinness High School in Oklahoma City. Hankins earned a master’s degree from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2001. He teaches fulltime at Oklahoma Christian Academy.


Hankins is a member of the Oklahoma Coaches Association and the Oklahoma Secondary Schools Athletic Association. He is married to former Lady Eagle basketball player Jennifer Scott of Yukon, Okla. The couple has a daughter, Madelyn, and a son, Drake along with the new addition of their daughter Aleah.

Caleb Panter

Caleb Panter

Assistant Coach

A second-year assistant with the Eagles, Panter played at Oklahoma Christian from 2002 to 2005, helping the Eagles to a 69-31 record in that span. He was a member of the Eagles’ 2004-05 SAC championship team and played on two NAIA national tournament squads. Panter oversees the junior varsity program in addition to his assistant coaching of the varsity team.


A native of Sulphur Springs, Texas, Panter was a district most valuable player and Class 4A all-stater at Sulphur Springs High School. He graduated from OC in 2005 with a business degree. He currently works as a phase manager for OC’s on-campus apartments and is pursuing a law degree at Oklahoma City University.


Panter is married to the former Addi Herndon (OC ’07) of Edmond, Okla. The Panters reside in Edmond and are active members of Memorial Road Church of Christ.