Harvard-Westlake girls basketball player Bella Spencer was on the beach when she found out head coach Melissa Hearlihy was retiring.
The team was on a mid-summer Zoom call and the discussion had turned to when the state championship rings were to be distributed. Suddenly, Hearlihy told her players that she had graduated.
“We’re like, ‘huh?’ She’s like, ‘I’ve graduated high school,’” Spencer, a senior, said. “We thought she went back to school. I didn’t think that was something like people did, but we started to clap. And then she was like, ‘No guys, you don’t understand. I retired.’”
Hearlihy’s sudden departure, which started with the tearful goodbye to her team, struck an emotional chord with the school as a whole, but the administration quickly had to move forward with its search for a new head coach. It announced on Aug. 22 that Alex Nailes, an assistant coach for the boys basketball team, would take over as the interim girls head coach.
“I’m enjoying myself, I’m enjoying every day with them,” Nailes said. “From day one until now, to see the growth of a lot of the girls, especially the younger girls and seeing how our senior leaders are stepping up to lead our freshmen and sophomores and help them understand the game of basketball, has just been great.”
Harvard-Westlake chose to use an interim head coach so that it could dedicate more time to a thorough search for a full-time coach.
Hearlihy, who officially retired on Aug. 5, won two state championships, four CIF Southern Section championships and nine Mission League titles in her 24 years with the Wolverines. Finding a worthy replacement would take a significant amount of time — and just as the school year and fall sports season were starting.
“The way Harvard-Westlake works, it’s not like we just look at a resume and say, ‘Oh, you’re hired,’” interim girls basketball program head and varsity boys basketball coach David Rebibo said.
“It’s OK, we’re gonna go through resumes, we’re gonna bring you in for informal meetings. Then we’ve got to set up formal meetings. Then there’s negotiation, background. So you’re talking about three weeks into school with a new coach starting.”
Nailes said he is interested in becoming a full-time head coach at some point in his career, whether that’s with the Harvard-Westlake girls team or not. He is currently pursuing a graduate degree in sports business while working full time as a project coordinator for an insurance broker while taking on coaching duties.
“If this is an opportunity that comes about, I’ll definitely sit on it, think about it and it could be something that happens,” Nailes said. “I’m not the one in that driver’s seat to make it happen, but my goal this year is to go about this as if it is my job and own it as if it is mine and also give these girls the best time they can have.”
Hearlihy has known Nailes for nearly his whole life, since she worked with Nailes’ father as a camera operator in the sports industry before getting into coaching. Nailes also attended most of the girls basketball games last season and came to many other sporting events.
Players have noticed close attention to player development and individual skills during practices since Nailes has taken the role of head coach. The season starts on Wednesday with a tournament game against Centennial of Corona and the team is excited to start a new chapter at Harvard-Westlake with Nailes.
“He’s the best, that’s how we should describe him,” senior Deana Thompson said. “He’s playful but he also knows when to lock in during practice. He holds us accountable and I feel like we needed that this year. We’re gonna have a great year and he’s gonna be supportive through everything.”
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