Tough and competitive on the sideline, Sacred Heart Academy basketball coach Donna Moir showed a different side after leading her team to a second straight state championship last month.

Joined by several players and her granddaughters Campbell and Eleanor during the postgame press conference at Rupp Arena, Moir was in tears as she recapped a season that was dedicated in part to the memory of her daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Campbell Moir, who died last summer.

“You don’t always get so much back from your players like I did this year,” Moir said after the Valkyries’ 64-46 victory over Bullitt East in the state final. “It’s been a great year. A lot of tough times, and I couldn’t have done it without them.”

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The Valkyries finished 36-3 this season and gave Moir her fifth state championship, having also won three in a row from 2002-04 and in 2021.

And just like the previous four championship seasons, Moir has been voted The Courier Journal’s Kentucky Girls Basketball Coach of the Year. She’s the only coach to win the honor five times. Laurel County’s Roy Bowling and Marshall County’s Howard Beth both won it three times.

Moir received 15 votes from the 62 coaches who returned ballots. Bullitt East’s Chris Stallings was the runner-up with 11 votes and was followed by Cooper’s Justin Holthaus (nine) and Southwestern’s Junior Molden (five).

Moir said basketball was an escape this season after her daughter-in-law’s death Aug. 27 following a battle with lung cancer.

“It was a place you could go and have fun and take your mind off things and just coach and be with the kids,” she said. “I guess you just realize that everybody has bad days, everybody is going through something.”

Elizabeth Campbell was a 2007 Sacred Heart graduate who played basketball for Moir. She went on to play two seasons at Holy Cross before transferring to the University of Kentucky. She married Moir’s oldest child, Michael, in 2014.

Months after the birth of their second child, Eleanor, in 2019, Elizabeth began coughing up blood following a bike ride. She was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.

“She’s a person you never think would get it because she’s so young and healthy and beautiful and a great athlete and a great mom,” Moir said. “That’s all she wanted to be.”

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During the Valkyries’ run to the state title in 2021, Michael would drive Elizabeth to Nashville, Tennessee, for treatments and then to Lexington to watch Sacred Heart play in the Sweet 16.

Moir joked that Elizabeth had become one of her toughest critics.

“Elizabeth would always say to me, ‘Coach Moir, you’re getting so soft. You don’t run them like you used to,’” Moir said. “She would always give me her opinion, and it wasn’t something I always liked.”

After Elizabeth’s death in August, Sacred Heart’s players did several acts to honor her memory. Before home games, a video featuring Elizabeth was played in the gym. The players also wore blue warmup T-shirts that had “Fight” on the front and Elizabeth’s Sacred Heart jersey No. 30 on the back. Their home uniforms had a patch on the front that read “ECM 30.”

Michael Moir, whose cousin Reagan Bender is a sophomore basketball player, said the entire program embraced his daughters. He added that Campbell’s favorite player is Bender and that Eleanor favors junior guard Triniti Ralston.

“My kids are around them all the time,” he said. “That’s asking a lot of high schoolers to take some of these kids in. They really stepped up. They didn’t have to step up. They didn’t have to do anything, but they did. That just shows there’s more to all of this than basketball. We went to the games to support them, but they kind of supported us.”

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Moir said Elizabeth’s battle changed her perspective on coaching and also affected others in the program.

“You hear so many stories about how hard parents are on coaches, and it just wasn’t that way,” Moir said. “It was really cool. You got to see a different side of people in your program. Former players reached out to me and Michael and the Campbells. It was hard, but it was something we could all rally around. …

“I didn’t put the pressure on myself like I normally do. It was bigger than basketball. I guess it gave me a whole new perspective. We were a lot calmer with the kids.”

Jason Frakes: 502-582-4046; jfrakes@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @kyhighs.

Past Courier Journal Girls Basketball Coaches of the Year

1975 – Bunny Daugherty, Sacred Heart; 1976 – Daugherty, Sacred Heart; 1977 – Peggy Fiehrer, Butler; 1978 – Roy Bowling, Laurel County; 1979 – Bowling, Laurel County; 1980 – David Young, Allen County-Scottsville.

1981 – Dan Hempel, Clark County; 1982 – Charlie Just, Mercy; 1983 – Vanous Lloyd, Warren Central; 1984 – Howard Beth, Marshall County; 1985 – Beth, Marshall County; 1986 – (tie) Teresa Ashby Terry, Madisonville; Beth, Marshall County; 1987 – Bill Brown, Southern; 1988 – Bowling Laurel County; 1989 – (tie) Ken Smith, Manual; Dave Weedman, Oldham County; 1990 – B.J. Elswick, Elkhorn City.

1991 – Leslie Scully, Mercy; 1992 – Jerry Troutman, Bullitt East; 1993 – Barbara Kenney, Nicholas County; 1994 – Rick Powell, Holy Cross; 1995 – Beverly Roby, Marion County; 1996 – Mark Evans, Oldham County; 1997 – Tim Mudd, Elizabethtown; 1998 – Mike Kindred, Montgomery County; 1999 – Jim Wright, Shelby County; 2000 – John “Hop” Brown, West Carter.

2001 – Greg Parrett, Jackson County; 2002 – Donna Moir, Sacred Heart; 2003 – Moir, Sacred Heart; 2004 – Moir, Sacred Heart; 2005 – Chrysti Noble, Rockcastle County; 2006 – Steve Helton, Scott County; 2007 – Jason Seamands, Lexington Christian; 2008 – Mike Sowers, Paul Dunbar; 2009 – Mudd, Elizabethtown; 2010 – Trent Milby, Marion County.

2011 – Noble, Rockcastle County; 2012 – Sarah Van Horn, Paul Dunbar; 2013 – Milby, Marion County; 2014 – Larry Just, Butler; 2015 – Kes Murphy, Covington Holy Cross; 2016 – Just, Butler; 2017 – Chris Souder, Mercer County; 2018 – Souder, Mercer County; 2019 – Katie Haitz, Ryle; 2020 – Chris Stallings, Bullitt East.

2021 – Moir, Sacred Heart; 2022 – Moir, Sacred Heart.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Sacred Heart's Donna Moir wins Kentucky Girls Basketball Coach of Year