ATHENS — Call her “Coach Abe.”
That was one of the most important takeaways from Tuesday’s introductory news conference for Georgia’s new women’s basketball coach, Katie Abrahamson-Henderson. Coach Abe is much easier than using her hyphenated last name.
That was among several revelations to come out of Tuesday’s event, which was conducted in the same format as the introductory presser for men’s coach Mike White at Stegeman Coliseum two weeks earlier. Among them was the fact that Coach Abe and White are good friends.
You’ll recall that White is the brother of Danny White, the successful college sports administrator whose latest address is the University of Tennessee. But Danny White was at Central Florida before that, and he hired Abrahamson-Henderson in 2016. All she did with the Knights was post a record of 131-49.
UCF just went 26-4 this season. That earned Abrahamson-Henderson coach of the year honors in the American Athletic Conference. It was the fourth time in stops at three different conferences that Coach Abe has received such a designation. She has averaged 22 wins over a 17-year span.
So, thanks to his family, Mike White knows Coach Abe quite well. When he heard that she was up for the vacated Georgia women’s job, he sent her a text saying simply, “LET’S GO” in all caps with a bunch of exclamation points and emojis following.
Impressive and cool, but a big reason Coach Abe was appointed the third UGA women’s coach in history this week was because of her relationship with Coach 1. That would be the legendary Andy Landers, for whom she played for at Georgia in the mid-1980s.
“I’ve never stopped speaking to him,” Abrahamson-Henderson said when asked about their relationship Tuesday. “I tease him sometimes when I see him on television. I’ll text him, ‘nice tie,’ stuff like that. Just little fun things. He’s fun-loving, and I think it’s great that he’s on TV because he knows the game, loves the women’s game, knows the women’s game, talks about it the right way.”
Coach Abe credits Landers for her baseline coaching philosophy, which is relentlessly intense defense and tireless effort.
“In my experience and in all the championship teams I’ve played, the common theme is lockdown defense,” she said. “I know everybody wants to see pretty 3-point shots, but the teams that are playing in the NCAA Tournament and the teams that are playing in the Final Four, they have lockdown defense. So that’s what we’re going to do, because we want to be a championship team.”
It is not Landers alone who instilled that in her. As Katie Abrahamson, she transferred from Georgia after two seasons to Iowa. There she was united with C. Vivian Stringer, she of 1,055 career coaching victories. So, between Landers and Stringer, Abrahamson-Henderson played for coaches that won 1,921 college games.
She does not apologize for leaving UGA. A native of Cedar Rapids, she longed for home after averaging 6.9 and 4.0 rebounds in 64 games with the Bulldogs from 1985 to 1987.
“In hindsight, it was probably the best thing I did,” she said. “I’ve been very blessed to play for two Hall of Fame coaches, work for several different Hall of Fame coaches. So, I think that was God’s plan for me to just be able to learn a lot from some really, really good coaches.”
Since Iowa, Coach Abe has done nothing but coach. She’s taken her teams from three different schools to the NCAA Tournament every season but four, and then played in the WNIT three times.
And that’s her goal at Georgia, to not just play in the NCAA Tournament every year but “compete for championships.”
Basketball is not just an occupation for Coach Abe. For her and her family, it’s their life. Her husband, Michael Henderson‚ was a Harlem Globetrotter and currently officiates women’s basketball (which he now cannot do in the SEC). They have two daughters, Brooklyn and Savannah, the latter of whom is a four-star prospect. Savannah had signed with UCF last year and now very likely will follow Mom to Athens.
The Lady Bulldogs already have seen two players enter the transfer portal and a five-star recruit back out of her commitment. But Coach Abe is undaunted.
She has built her reputation on being a builder of programs, and now she’s finally where she has always wanted to be – at a program already built for success.
“Being back here where I started my college career, it’s a dream. It’s crazy,” Coach Abe told her audience at Stegeman Coliseum. “I see pictures of me, and I’m like, ‘Please take those down. My hair, what was I thinking back then?’ But to be able to come back and lead this historic program is very exhilarating to me. My staff and I have rebuilt two programs. Taking them all the way from the bottom, winning eight games, seven games, all the way to the top, winning conference championships and going to the NCAA Tournament every single year. So that’s a huge accomplishment for me and my staff.
“Georgia women’s basketball, on the other hand, is a winning program already. So, I can only imagine where we could go from here.”
To the top is the plan.
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