‘Here we go’: Boyd ready to guide QU women’s basketball program back to historic heights

QUINCY — The caller ID read “Josh Rabe,” which meant Courtney Boyd knew which direction the conversation would veer if she answered.

She said hello without hesitation.

“What went through my head was, ‘Here we go,’” said Boyd, the Keokuk, Iowa, native who recently capped her sixth season as the head women’s basketball coach at Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa, by winning the NAIA national championship.

“I think the immediate reaction was, ‘Are you ready for him to ask you the question that you think he’s going to ask you?’ In my head, answering the phone was my answer of yes.”

It’s exactly what Rabe wanted to hear.

Moments earlier, while playing with his kids in his family’s driveway, the Quincy University athletic director learned via a phone call his women’s basketball coach, Kaci Bailey, was going to be a candidate for the vacant head coaching position at Drury University. Immediately, his mind turned to finding a potential replacement.

“As I stood in my driveway, I had one choice to make, ‘Who do I call?’” Rabe said. “(QU president Dr. Brian McGee) came to mind. The agent he emailed me about earlier in the day came to mind. But somebody once told me, when you find talent, follow that talent because you never know when the timing might be right to acquire that talent.

“That moment in the driveway I called Courtney Boyd.”

And he had a question for her.

“As we talked, I explained the situation we were possibly going to be in,” Rabe said. “And I asked her one simple question. If this goes like I think it will, will you come back to the Tri-State area and finish this job for us?”

Boyd didn’t immediately say yes, but by no means did she say no.

“She told me a key term,” Rabe said. “The timing was right.”

The timing turned out to be perfect.

Thursday morning, Rabe introduced Boyd as the Hawks’ new coach, bringing in a highly decorated coach who previously worked on a Great Lakes Valley Conference staff to lead a program with an upward trajectory.

Boyd replaces Bailey, who resigned to take the Drury job after just two seasons at Quincy’s helm. Her teams went 22-36 and qualified for the GLVC Tournament last month for the first time since 2016. Those 22 victories nearly matched the 25 games the Hawks won in the previous five seasons combined.

With a core group of experienced players returning, the foundation is set for the Hawks to maintain their rise. It’s one of the reasons Boyd accepted the challenge, knowing the fight is on to return Quincy to a place it once owned — a spot in the GLVC upper echelon.

“There’s a history here, and there are people who want that history to be restarted,” Boyd said. “I’m excited and I feel honored to be a part of that and to be believed in for the ability to bring that back to life.”

Her resume speaks volumes about being the right person to do that.

Boyd was named the Clarke head coach in 2017 after spending two seasons as the associate head coach at Wisconsin-Parkside, a former GLVC program which went 1-1 against Quincy during Boyd’s time in Kenosha, Wis.

She won 20 games in her first season at Clarke, tying the single-season program record for victories. She won no fewer than 23 games any season thereafter, compiling a 155-42 record over six seasons with a Heart of America Athletic Conference championship in 2021-22 when she was named the league’s Coach of the Year.

Last winter, the Pride went 33-4 and won the NAIA national championship — the first national title in any sport in school history — as Boyd was named the NAIA National Coach of the Year.

How did that happen? With passion, speed, aggressiveness, preparation, effort and communication.

As Boyd described her style during her introductory press conference, Rabe stood to the side in the Hall of Fame and nodded.

“It’s nothing I hadn’t heard from her before,” said Rabe, who interviewed Boyd for the same job two years ago when the timing wasn’t right for her to take the job. “What she does works. That’s the big thing. What she just said culminated in a national title. I know the NAIA is different from the NCAA, but it’s not that much different. What she does transcends level, affiliation or whatever.”

It’s why Rabe stayed in contact with Boyd, including sending her congratulatory messages when Clarke won the NAIA title.

That resonated strongly with her.

“His loyalty to me from two years ago, his commitment to trying again,” Boyd said. “It definitely mattered.”

So did the opportunity coach close to home.

“There’s something to be said for doing what you love surrounded by the people that you love,” Boyd said. “Raising a family and being in the community are things that are very important. Having those local connections are only going to make me more successful. 

“Being able to reach out to people that I know and I feel comfortable with and that I trust is only going to be able to take us to the next level sooner than I think.”

Rabe sees Boyd taking QU to the next level and beyond.

“This was a win for us today,” Rabe said. “This was a big win.”