Tierra Haynes moves with confidence to her seats at Fiserv Forum, with her three sons following closely behind.

The Haynes crew makes a brief stop by the court to chat with the fifth member of the team, Marquette men's basketball assistant coach DeAndre Haynes, before the Golden Eagles' home finale on March 6. There are hugs all around before Dad has to go to work.

It was a normal family scene, but life for anyone involved in college basketball is anything but normal. It can be especially chaotic in March, when postseason games are coming fast and furious, and rumors about coaches getting fired and hired reach a fever pitch. Tierra's life doesn't slow down outside of MU basketball, either, especially with three sons who also play hoops.

“I’ve got four basketball schedules on my calendar right now," Tierra said. "So I pretty much live in my car and the Chick-Fil-A line.”

Tierra, 40, has found a place for herself amidst the tumult. With an engaging mix of humor and seriousness, she has created an online platform called "Mommy On The Move" that aims to help overwhelmed mothers. She is an influencer with just shy of 100,000 followers on Instagram – more than MU stars Oso Ighodaro, Kam Jones and Tyler Kolek combined – and she's branched out into speaking events, podcasts, mom coaching and books.

"I wanted to create something that I feel like I never saw," Tierra said. "Nobody else in my family or Dre’s family was a stay-at-home mom. Nobody else is living this basketball, ex-pat life, right?

"So I felt like I really didn’t have anywhere to turn. Even just in motherhood, to talk about, like, my kids are really driving me crazy today. I feel like everything online was so curated and so Patty Positive and 'my kids are my life.'

"And they are, but can we have a real conversation? And so I felt like I didn’t see that, especially for women of color. It was really important to me to be that representation."

Basketball has taken the Haynes family all over world

Tierra grew up outside Cleveland, and chose to attend Kent State so she could walk on with the track team. That's where she met DeAndre, who was a star on the Golden Flashes' basketball team.

They started dating in 2004. DeAndre Haynes graduated two years later and embarked on the nomadic existence of a basketball lifer.

“He’s always been so clear in what he wanted to do," Tierra said. "He made it really easy to follow his lead. It was basketball, and we’re going to ride that train. And we’re still on it, just in a different way.”

First, DeAndre played six seasons professionally overseas, each year in a different city in Belgium, Hungary, Germany and Finland. In 2012, he made the transition to coaching and has made stops at Kent State, Toledo, Michigan, Maryland and now MU.

The couple's first son, DeAndre Jr., was born during DeAndre's first stint across the pond. The next decade was a blur of marriage, basketball and two more sons in Devon and Dallas.

"I really spent so many years lost in motherhood," Tierra said. "I was an athlete, and then I was in school, and then I was just somebody’s mom. Like that.

"At 22, I’m now pregnant and I’ve got all this responsibility. And I’ve got this boyfriend who lives this really weird life. I didn’t have any friends that were pregnant yet. It was a very isolating walk and journey at first."

After DeAndre Jr. – also known as Dre like his father – was born, Tierra was going back and forth between Europe and Ohio. She started giving updates about Little Dre on Facebook. That started the idea that eventually became "Mommy On The Move."

“It’s always been chaotic," Tierra said. "But it’s the way we’ve always lived, so it doesn’t feel odd anymore or far-fetched. But as the kids get older, it does get a little harder. Dre’s obviously in high school. You’ve got academics. You’ve got athletics. You’ve got all these things. Or just making friends in general.”

'Give us the genuine you'

By the time DeAndre was at Michigan in 2016, Tierra was looking for more ways to express herself.

Laci Swann, Tierra's friend and book editor, thought Tierra's outgoing personality would fit well on a podcast. The Instagram page came out of that as well.

"Her platform may have started out being based on her husband’s career," Swann said. "But she is certainly a shining example of someone who really walks to the side of their husband, not behind them. She’s very much her own person while being this amazingly supportive mother, friend, partner."

But Tierra wasn't quite ready to put herself fully out there in the public realm.

“I was hesitant just because Michigan was the biggest school we had been at, so I was like, what if I slip up and say a curse word?" Tierra said. "Or I don’t want to talk about this; what if certain people hear it and it blows back on Dre?

"I’m really grateful for my village and my circle of friends that are, like, just do it. Just be you. Give us the genuine you. I will say that my first couple years I was not being my most authentic self, I was a very scared version of Tierra. A friend sat me down and said, ‘So what you’re doing is cute. But let’s peel back a couple layers and let’s really get into it.’"

Now Tierra isn't afraid to talk about the messiness of being a parent. It makes her much more relatable, and her audience has skyrocketed. She's also comfortable in front of the camera, and has a strong comedic sensibility, which makes for entertaining videos.

"It definitely makes me proud to see her find her voice and see her just be transparent," DeAndre said. "I think she’s real and transparent and unedited to where most women wouldn’t do some of the things she do online.

"Even when she’s having fun, drinking wine, she’s being herself. And she’s doing it in a place of being a mother, to being a godly women at the same time. To go through problems and to speak about them. She’s not afraid to speak about what she goes through."

It's not just wives and mothers in the college basketball world, either.

"I would get a messages, like, 'my husband’s a firefighter,'" Tierra said. "Their schedules are so unpredictable and crazy. They’re gone for days at a time.

"Or 'my husband’s a pilot.' So that’s kind of similar in a sense. I’ve gotten pastor’s wives that feel that similar, like, can’t say that in public, can’t wear that. That pressure that we feel from our husbands’ jobs being so public."

Tierra Haynes has also written children's books

Swann, who works in publishing, also pushed Tierra to write her own children's books when Tierra noticed a lack of options about Black history.

Her first book was about the astronaut Guion Bluford Jr. She has just published another one that revolves around the archaeologist Theresa Singleton. The Haynes family is featured prominently in each book as characters who learn about those important figures.

"Her books have a wealth of information," Swann said. "Yet they’re very engaging for children in terms of the characters of her sons."

Tierra just keeps building the brand. Her Instagram following allows her to do some paid posts, and she will share the money with her sons if they agree to be part of them. She will host an event at the Final Four next month in Glendale, Arizona.

And there's always more content to deliver. She continues to thrive in that chaos.

“I actually had women write me on Instagram saying, ‘I want you to keep thanking your wife because she helped me get through this,’" DeAndre said. "I said, ‘Well, you can actually write her and tell her.’ I’ve had NBA scouts call me and tell me how funny she is. They love her content. Their wives follow her know and things like that. People call me all the time.

"It’s huge because she does so much for me being able to do what I do when it comes to coaching. One, just taking care of our kids every day and just being there. She’s the default parent. I’m working, I’m on the road all the time and she’s at home, taking them to the doctor’s appointments.

"I’ll be honest, there’s a lot of stuff I don’t know. If I have to take a kid to a tryout, I don’t know who their primary doctor is and things like that. She knows it all."

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Marquette assistant's wife Tierra Haynes is an influencer, author