Haave attended Evergreen High School where she competed in both basketball and volleyball.[1] In 1980, she was named Sportswoman of the Year and later became the first woman to be named the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame High School Athlete of the Year.[2] In her final year of high school, Haave set four basketball state tournament records, including recording a 100% single-game free throw record, and was named to a national All-America.[3]
Basketball career
Collegiate career
Haave attended the University of Tennessee (UT) from 1980 to 1984 under the guidance of coach Pat Summitt. As a member of the Lady Vols, she led the team to three NCAA Final Four appearances and two national championship games. As a result, she was named a 1983 Kodak All-American, and All-SEC and NCAA All-Regional team member twice.[4] She became the first All-American for the Lady Vols and concluded her collegiate career as the all-time leading scorer in the programs history.[5] In 1984, she received the Chancellor's Citation for Academic Excellence and Leadership and Woman of Achievement Award from the UT Commission for Women.[6]
After graduating from Tennessee, she spent 14 years playing professional basketball overseas in France, Italy, Spain, Australia, and Sweden.[7] She earned a silver medal with Team USA at the 1982 R. William Jones Cup.[8]
Coaching career
Haave began her coaching career at Regis University from 1999 to 2001 before joining the Colorado Buffaloes women's basketball as an assistant coach.[9] During her tenure with the Colorado Buffaloes, she was inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.[10] She stayed at Colorado until 2005, when she joined the Denver Pioneers women's basketball team as an assistant coach.[11] In the year she left Colorado, Haave was inducted into the Tennessee Lady Vol Hall of Fame.[4] While with the Denver Pioneers, she helped lead the team to a 15–13 overall record which included an appearance in the Sun Belt Conference tournament.[12]
She stayed with the Pioneers for one year before earning her first NCAA Division I head coaching position with the University of San Francisco in 2006.[13] During her four-year stay with the San Francisco Dons women's basketball team, Haave accumulated a 36–86 overall record and four straight seventh-place finishes in the West Coast Conference.[14] This led to her being fired from San Francisco and hired for the Metro State Roadrunners of the Metropolitan State University of Denver.[15] In her first year with the Roadrunners, she helped lead them to their first Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championship since 1998[1] and was named the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Coach of the Year.[16] Her continued success with the team earned her a renewed contract with the university on May 13, 2013.[17] By January 2015, Haave became the fastest Roadrunner coach to reach 100 wins in the schools history.[18] She eventually tied former coach Darryl Smith for most Roadrunner wins in program history, with a 159–84 record.[5] At the end of that season, where the Roadrunners finished second in the Rocky Mountain conference, Haave was named the Conference's Coach of the Year.[19]
^"TRANSACTIONS". Hartford Courant. April 25, 2001. Retrieved January 13, 2020. REGIS—Announced the resignations of Tanya Haave, women's assistant basketball coach, to take a similar position at Colorado
