Destinee Rogers, the first Black woman coach at Arkansas State, guided the Red Wolves to an upset of James Madison and their first-ever NCAA Tournament berth.
Back in 2021, Dawn Staley took the net that she cut down from South Carolina’s 2017 national championship and diced it into pieces. She then divided them up and sent them to 70 Black women coaches in an attempt to recreate the inspiration that Carolyn Peck – the first Black woman to win a national title in 1999 with Purdue – gave to her.
When Arkansas State removed the interim tag from Destinee Rogers in the spring of 2022 – making her the first Black woman to be the head coach of any sport at the school – she held up the string of nylon of Staley’s net that the South Carolina coach sent to her. Fast forward three years later and Rogers now has her own net.
By upsetting top-seeded James Madison in the title game of the Sun Belt conference tournament, Rogers is taking Arkansas State to the NCAA Tournament for the first time ever. She’s hopeful, and confident, that the Red Wolves will continue to win.
And like Staley did for her, she aims to provide some inspiration for other young Black women aiming to break into coaching.
“I truly feel like I have an opportunity to kind of be someone that could open the door for the next one, because if they see that I can do it, then they know that they can do it as well,” Rogers told SB Nation. “I take a lot of pride in being the first Black head coach here, but also being from Arkansas and just proving to people that we can get it done too and we deserve to have a seat at the table as well. So, it’s super satisfying. We want to keep it rolling.”
Rogers, 35, was born and raised in Arkansas and has won big pretty much everywhere she’s been. As a high schooler, she won four state championships. As a player for Central Arkansas, she averaged 7.7 points and 3.3 assists per game as a senior starter and helped the Sugar Bears win a regular season championship. Then as an assistant coach at her alma mater, she helped Central Arkansas make the Division I NCAA Tournament for the first time ever. The Sugar Bears went to March Madness again in 2017 with Rogers still on staff.
A few years later, Rogers joined the staff at Arkansas State. She didn’t think she would be a head coach so soon in her career, but fate had other plans. When Matt Daniel resigned 10 games into the 2021-22 campaign, she was promoted to the lead chair on the bench. She won her very first game as a head coach – becoming the first Black woman to do so for the Red Wolves – defeating Mississippi Valley State 81-47. Months later, she was holding up the piece of net Staley had given to her as she was named the full-time head coach.
Never a shadow of a doubt of the come up! Net cutter you!! Congrats and keep making us happy proud! https://t.co/fjoBof21sY
— dawnstaley (@dawnstaley) March 14, 2025
“I’m a woman of faith. And you know, I believe that God put me on the path that he put me on for a reason. I truly feel like I’m chosen and called to do this,” Rogers said. “I had a vision that we were going to win a championship here. I didn’t know when, but I will be honest and tell you when I saw this team for the first time, I thought that this was the team that could get it done.”
Building Arkansas State into a winner didn’t happen overnight though. Rogers won just 13 games in each of her first two full-time seasons leading the Red Wolves.
When last season ended though, she saw an opportunity for a fresh start. She retained three key players, and then completely revamped the roster with nine transfers. Rogers specifically targeted athletes in the portal who fit the way that she wanted to play: fast.
“We didn’t have the personnel to play fast the previous two years, so we were able to go out and find kids that could play fast, that were three level shooters,” Rogers said. “We thrive on defense. We press for 40 minutes. So, you got to be able to defend. But you also got to be able to play fast and be able to shoot the ball at a high level.”
There were doubters that Rogers could transform the Red Wolves into a contender. They were picked to finish 13th in the Sun Belt in the league’s preseason poll.
As a team, the Red Wolves talked about that ranking just one time. They didn’t carry it with them all season and weren’t motivated to prove the naysayers wrong. They just aimed to prove Rogers right.
Collectively, the pieces that Rogers put together became one of the best 3-point shooting teams in all of women’s college basketball this season. Nationally, Arkansas State ranks second in 3-point rate, second in total 3-pointers made, and first in percentage of points from 3-pointers. They’re also 26th nationally in turnovers forced per game. Defense and deep shots is the style that the Red Wolves have embraced.
Rogers knew that her team would be able to play fast and defend well, but she didn’t know that her players would be able to collectively shoot the ball that well until she saw them all on the court together during preseason practices. So she adapted and tailored the Arkansas State offense to a four-out, one-in system – similar to what North Carolina State plays – or at times a five-out scheme, popularized by Karl Smesko’s Florida Gulf Coast.
“Moving forward, that’s who we’re going to be,” Rogers said. “So if you’re going to come to Arkansas State, you got to be able to shoot the ball.”
That style helped Arkansas State break off an 11-game win streak in Sun Belt play and go 15-3 overall in league play, good enough for a second-place finish. The team at the top of the table was James Madison, who went 18-0 in the Sun Belt. But with the way the conference schedule is set up, not everyone plays each other. So, the Dukes hadn’t seen Rogers’ new-look Red Wolves up close until the conference tournament title game.
With an NCAA Tournament bid on the line, Arkansas State sank 12 3-pointers and turned the Dukes over 16 times. The Red Wolves won in overtime, 86-79, snapping JMU’s 20-game win streak.
“They hadn’t seen us before, and the way we play is so unorthodox where, if you’re not prepared for it, I think it could cause you some problems,” Rogers said. “We really felt like, if we could really get aggressive in our press and play as fast as we could, that we would give them some trouble… One thing about this team is they have zero fear.”
Of the transfers that Rogers brought in, six of them decided to come to Arkansas State for their final year of eligibility. They believed in her, the team and the style, and believed that they could all accomplish something special together.
“They deserve a ton of credit for taking that risk to come here for their last year, and now they’re champions,” Rogers said. “I just believe if you want to be successful, you better get old and stay old. That’s kind of what we do. We recruit the portal. It’s not going to be different this year. We’re going to jump back in the portal and we’re going to go get some more good players, and we’re going to keep this thing rolling.”
As one of the youngest head coaches in Division I, Rogers believes that the net she cut down at the Sun Belt tournament in Pensacola, Florida won’t be her last.
