“Dad Put A Ball In My Hands Soon As I Could Walk”

Jonesboro, AR – (JonesboroRightNow.com) – March 15, 2025 – Destinee Rogers’ journey from a town of 400 people to the Head Coach of Women’s Basketball at Arkansas State University has involved three main ingredients: God, family, and a basketball.

“Basketball is my life. It’s taken me places I could have never dreamed of,” Rogers said. “I’m just a little kid from Strong, Arkansas who gets to say that she was the first-ever head coach to take Arkansas State Women’s Basketball to the NCAA tournament. I think that’s pretty cool.”

Rogers is the daughter of Ronald and Angela Rogers. She is the oldest of four daughters who also include Desiree’, Wynter and Whitley who have all had a basketball in their hand. With Ronald coaching girls’ basketball at Strong, Camden Fairview and now Little Rock Christian, the Rogers girls didn’t have much of a choice.

“My Dad put a ball in my hands as soon as I could walk,” Rogers said. “He coached me for most of my life. He taught me everything I know about basketball.”

Desiree’ played for her dad at Camden Fairview and later played at the University of Central Arkansas. Wynter played at West Virginia and now is playing for the Lady Red Wolves now as a junior. Whitley is playing for her dad now at Little Rock Christian. She’ll be a senior in high school next year.

Destinee Rogers won a state championship her freshman, sophomore, junior and senior years of high school. The first two were championships while playing at Strong. As a freshman she was named MVP of the 1A Girls State Tournament. She also won championships at Camden Fairview as a junior and senior. Rogers’ Dad was the head coach for all four teams.

Jonesboro native Matt Daniel was head coach of the women’s team at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) and recruited Rogers to play college basketball for the Sugar Bears. Rogers was a three-year starter at UCA finishing her playing career averaging 7.4 points, 3.2 assists and 2.3 rebounds per game with more than 100 3-point field goals to her credit.

After graduation, Rogers became Daniel’s graduate assistant and later his assistant coach and helped UCA to the 2012 Southland Conference Championship and their first-ever trip to the NCAA Tournament.

“I think a cool thing about my story is that while I was an assistant coach, I was a part of winning the tournament for the first time at Central Arkansas and going to the NCAA tournament for the first time,” Rogers said. “And now it’s the same thing here at Arkansas State, so two schools in Arkansas, I’ve been a part of taking the team to the NCAA tournament for the first time ever.”

The years as an assistant at UCA gave Rogers the desire to be a head coach.

“I needed some head coaching experience. So, I went to El Dorado High School and was a head coach there for three years,” Rogers said.

During her three seasons at El Dorado Rogers guided the Wildcats to a 52-28 record, including a 21-8 mark in her first season with a state semifinal finish.

In 2019, Daniel had become the head women’s basketball coach at Arkansas State. Daniel recruited Rogers for the second time, this time as his assistant. She was elevated to associate head coach in 2020. Then, in December 2021, life for Rogers changed. Daniel resigned the head coach position.

Then-Athletic Director Tom Bowen named Rogers as the interim head coach. She coached her first game as interim head coach on December 14:  defeating Mississippi Valley State 81-47. The team went 8-10 after Rogers was named interim head coach. The Red Wolves lost leading scorer Keya Patton to a season-ending injury during that stretch.

Rogers’ first full season as the official head coach (2022-2023) ended with a 13-19 overall mark and 6-12 ledger in conference play. A-State reached the quarterfinals of the Sun Belt Conference Tournament for the first time since 2017.  In 2023-2024 the team finished with a 13-17 overall record and a 6-12 conference mark for the second consecutive season.

But the end of that second season as head coach was met with some unpleasant challenges. Now, there was a “portal” to deal with in college basketball. All but three members of that 23-24 team left to play elsewhere, including marquis player Izzy Higginbottom of Batesville who transferred to in-state nemesis University of Arkansas. Fans were restless, many posting comments on social media and elsewhere that it was “time for Rogers to go.”

“I was pretty down,” Rogers said, admitting she’s being transparent. “You know, we lost Izzy, we lost most of our team. We only had three players returning, and we knew it was going to be a challenge to go build this team.”

It was then that Rogers referenced her faith.

“I give a lot of credit to God. I’m really big in my faith. I just kept pressing the vision that God gave me. He gave me a vision that we were going to be the first, that I was going to be the first head coach, and my staff was going to be a part of going to the NCAA for the first time here. And I just chose to believe that even when it didn’t look or feel good.”

And press on she did, recruiting players from Toronto, Texas, Illinois, Tennessee, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Rogers says six of the ten players who came took a risk for their final year of eligibility.

“To come here for their last year, not knowing what this was going to be like,” Rogers said. “I think that speaks to the goodness of God, and when you have faith in the vision that He gave you.”

The 2024-2025 Red Wolves finished the regular season 19-10, 15-3 in conference play, and seeded second in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament. A-State defeated Troy 81-66 in the semi-finals on March 9. The team faced top seed and unbeaten in conference play James Madison in the championship game on March 10, which was nationally televised on ESPN. A-State had played every team in the Sun Belt Conference at least once, except James Madison.

“I knew that JMU was going to think that, like, ‘hey, this is the game that we got to win.’ And rightfully so, right? They went 18-0. And so, you know, if I was in their shoes, I would probably think that we’re supposed to win the game as well,” she said.

The championship game was a rollercoaster for the Red Wolves. The game was tied 23-23 at the end of the first quarter. JMU outscored the Red Wolves 17-9 in the second quarter and led 40-32 at halftime. At one point in the second quarter the Red Wolves were behind by 17 points.

The second half saw A-State outscore JMU 19-17 in the third quarter, and 19-13 in the fourth quarter to finish regulation tied 70-70.

With an overtime period looming, Rogers said she sat in the huddle with her team confident.

“We got ’em,” Rogers said she told her team. “We practice extremely hard every single day, and I knew that we had the stamina and that our pace was going to get to them in overtime. You saw them get tired (in regulation) and their shots weren’t falling. Our press really bothered them in overtime.”

Rogers said she could tell in the huddle her team was committed: “I just saw the look in their eyes that they were not going to let us lose.”

The Red Wolves didn’t lose. The ladies outscored JMU 16-9 in overtime to win 86-79 to win the Sun Belt Tournament and receive the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

After the final buzzer, Rogers’ family was there to celebrate with her. Ronald and Angela Rogers celebrating a daughter who coached the team that won the tournament and coached the team going to the NCAA Tournament for the first time. Rogers did it as the first African American woman head coach in A-State Athletics history.

They also celebrated another daughter, Wynter, a redshirt junior who wears the number 2 jersey. Wynter transferred from West Virginia last year. She was one of the three players who remained after the smoke cleared from the team departures at the end of the 23-24 season. Wynter is also the head coach’s sister.

“When Wynter was deciding to leave West Virginia, I was her first call. She said she wanted to come home, she wanted to be able to play in front of our family, but she also wanted to be coached by me,” Rogers said. “She’s the type of player that every team needs. She’s going to sacrifice herself for the betterment of the team and do whatever you ask her to to win a game. I couldn’t be prouder to say that I got an opportunity to coach my sister.”

Arkansas State’s Athletic Department has scheduled a NCAA Tournament Selection Show watch party starting at 6 p.m. Sunday, March 16, inside Centennial Bank Stadium’s Woodard McAlister Family Club. The event is open to the public with fans encouraged to park behind the Johnny Allison Tower and enter through the main gates.

The 2025 Sun Belt Conference Tournament champions will be available for autographs at 6:15 p.m., and fans will be able to take photos with the championship trophy. The event will feature a cash bar and appetizers. The team’s tournament destination and first-round opponent will be announced on the Selection Show which starts at 7 p.m.

Asked about how she is approaching the tournament, Rogers said, “Somebody’s got to make a run, why not us? We’re not going to this tournament to just dance. We’re going to this tournament to compete to win.”