Hartman inducted into Southern University's Athletic Hall of Fame

Southern University Sports Hall of Fame announced the induction of Herman Hartman Sr. into the Athletic Hall of Fame for outstanding achievement in basketball.
The ceremony was held Oct. 30 at The Belle of Baton Rouge.
Hartman coached women’s basketball at Southern University from 1992 to 2000.
At the time, it was the challenge Hartman needed after successfully coaching the Morgan City High School boys basketball team to six district championships.
“When I went to Southern University, I’d never coached girls,” said Hartman, a Southern alum. “You talk about a learning experience. It was a big difference.”
Hartman recalls challenging boys in a gruff, stern taskmaster-like manner.
“Look, man, this is the way we’re going to do it,” Hartman said.
Maintaining his taskmaster-like approach, he recognized he had to later embrace a less gruff and more of an encouraging tone coaching his girls.
Knowing his history with the Morgan City High School boys basketball team, “he came in with that same momentum” of coaching a championship team, said Gwen Wilson Gene, former player of Hartman.
“He saw girls, but he was running us like that high school basketball team,” Gene said. “He would say mind over matter. I’m going to get it out of you one way or another.”
“Coach Hartman used to run the hell out of us,” said Yolanda Brown, former player of Hartman. She also worked with Hartman as an assistant strength and conditioning coach.
She was the first female to accomplish the strength and conditioning coach position at Southern.
Both Brown and Gene played for Hartman during his first year at Southern.
“We had to run all the time,” Brown said. “It was also used for disciplinary matters.
“His toughness is the reason why we won the 1992-93 SWAC Championship,” she said.
“I yelled at one of them, and the whole bench, everybody started crying,” Hartman said.
He asked his assistant what was wrong with the team. His assistant responded, “coach, you yelled at them, and they just couldn’t take that.”
“So I had to learn how to challenge the girls,” Hartman said.
Another incident impressed upon Hartman to change his technique.
“I told a girl you know you can’t make no jump shots,” Hartman said. “She missed every last one of them. She told me ‘well, coach, you said I couldn’t do it.’”
But his prior knowledge working with boys using the same incident would only challenge males to say “I’ll show you, man.”
Using reverse psychology, he told his player, “Baby, I don’t care if you score 100 points. Just score.”
“Reverse psychology, you’ve got to pick up on it or you’ll get lost,” Hartman said.
“He groomed us to be the best of the best,” Gene said. “His expectations were very high. Being that coach, that father figure, nurturing us to be the young ladies we are today, we are so grateful.
“Even though we thought that he meant it for our bad, it got the results for us to become the first Lady Jaguars team to make history winning the SWAC championship,” Gene said. “We were the first team ever to win the SWAC Championship ever for basketball at Southern.”
Southern University women’s basketball team won the Southwestern Athletic Conference Championship Hartman’s first year of coaching.
Brown and Gene also were inducted into the hall of fame at the same time as their former coach.
“It’s been two weeks, and I haven’t stopped smiling yet,” Brown said. “Being inducted into the hall of fame at the same time as my coach is such an awesome feeling.
“That is what makes this so memorable, so historical,” Brown said. “I’m honored to have played and coached under Coach Hartman. I am so grateful for this blessing.
“I never knew something like this would have come my way, 20 years later,” she said.
Hartman commuted from Morgan City to Baton Rouge for eight years.
Hartman was the only Southern women’s basketball coach to beat LSU during the tenure of legendary coach Sue Gunter.
Around 1998, one of Hartman’s players, LaKesha Johnson, led the nation in steals.
“He was a coach that was driven,” Gene said. “Coaching was his life. It is his life. “He was always business and wanted the best,” Gene added. “And he was going to get the best out of you if it was the last thing he was going to do.
“Unacceptable. Unsatisfied. Let’s try it again,” she said.