With 724 wins in his collegiate coaching career, Dan Hays wrapped up his tenure as Oklahoma Christian University’s head coach in February 2016 after 33 seasons. With a 653-402 record at OC, Hays recorded more wins than any coach in school history.
After one season as a volunteer boys coach at Mustang High School and two more as a volunteer assistant at Central Oklahoma, Hays returned to the OC program in April 2019 as a volunteer assistant coach, serving under interim head coach Kendre Talley
Hays' overall college coaching record of 724-470 – which includes five seasons at Northwestern Oklahoma State – puts him at No. 1 for the most wins recorded by a men’s basketball coach at a four-year Oklahoma college. With a win in the 2011-12 season opener over Central Bible (Mo.), Hays passed one of his mentors, legendary Southeastern Oklahoma State University coach Bloomer Sullivan, to take the top spot on that list.
He ranks tied for 42nd all-time in wins among coaches at four-year colleges at any level and, at the time he stepped down, ranked No. 20 among active coaches in career wins.
Hays earned his 700th career collegiate win on March 13, 2013, in the National Christian College Athletic Association quarterfinals against Spring Arbor (Mich.), and guided OC through its first season of full NCAA Division II membership in 2015-16 before stepping down. He is one of four college coaches who worked at an Oklahoma university to record at least 700 wins and two of the others (Henry Iba and Eddie Sutton) are in the College Basketball Hall of Fame.
The Eagles won six of their 10 Sooner Athletic Conference regular-season championships and their only SAC tournament title during Hays’ tenure. He led Oklahoma Christian to nine NAIA Division I tournaments and reached the “Sweet 16” five times, most recently in 2010. He has coached two NAIA players of the year, Jay Mauck (1999) and Jarred Merrill (2005).
During the 2012-13 season, OC’s first as a member of the NCCAA, he guided the Eagles to the national championship game, losing a heartbreaker in overtime to Shorter (Ga.). His final season at OC was 2015-16, in which the Eagles produced a NCAA Division II All-America pick in center John Moon.
Hays was inducted into the NAIA Hall of Fame at the 1998 national tournament and became a member of the OC Athletic Hall of Fame in a ceremony on Feb. 21, 2002. He also was inducted into the athletic hall of fame at his alma mater, Eastern New Mexico University, in 1996. He also is a member of the Oklahoma Coaches Association Hall of Fame (inducted in 2018) and the Oklahoma Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame (inducted in 2021).
In August 2021, he received the state's top sports honor, being inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame.
He has received plenty of other honors, too. In April 2011, OC honored Hays by naming the court inside the Eagles’ Nest “Dan Hays Court.” In 2017, the National Association of Basketball Coaches honored Hays with its prestigious Guardians of the Game award for service, which recognizes coaches who serve as community leaders who help enhance their communities through civic involvement. It is considered to be one of the highest coaching honors given by the NABC.
Hays has left his mark as a successful coach both on and off the court. In addition to coaching the Eagles to 20 or more wins during 19 of the past 32 seasons, Hays has seen more than 90 percent of the seniors in his program complete their degrees. During OC's final years in the NAIA, several of his squads were designated as NAIA Scholar Teams due to high cumulative grade-point averages.
In 1998, Hays, the NAIA representative to the USA Men’s Basketball Collegiate Committee, served as an assistant to Jim Boeheim of Syracuse University on the USA Basketball Junior World Championship Team, which won the gold medal in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.
Hays also was an assistant to then-University of Florida (and current University of Oklahoma) coach Lon Kruger on the 1991 gold-medal-winning USA team at the World Championships for Junior Men in Edmonton, Canada, and at the 1990 U.S. Olympic Festival in Minneapolis. Hays served as the president of the NAIA Men’s Basketball Coaches Association from 1991 to 1993.
He has been named Sooner Athletic Conference coach of the year five times (1985, 1986, 1989, 1999, 2005) and NAIA District 9 coach of the year twice (1981, 1985).
Hays came to Oklahoma Christian after five seasons as head coach at Northwestern Oklahoma State in Alva. Hays went 71-68 at Northwestern and led the Rangers to the NAIA District 9 semifinals during the 1981-82 and 1982-83 seasons. His 1980-81 squad won the Oklahoma Intercollegiate Conference title and he was named OIC coach of the year in 1981 and 1983.
Before becoming a college head coach, Hays served as an assistant coach at Southeastern Oklahoma State for three seasons and at Eastern Washington University for one season. He also coached for six seasons at the high school level in two New Mexico towns, Grants and Roswell, guiding four teams to the New Mexico prep state tournament.
Hays is a 1964 graduate of Highland High School in Albuquerque, N.M. He attended Casper (Wyo.) Junior College for one year before transferring to Eastern New Mexico. At ENMU, Hays earned All-America honorable mention twice and was named to the NAIA and NCAA all-district teams twice. He was the most valuable player and leading scorer on coach Harry Miller’s first two nationally ranked Greyhound teams.
After graduating in 1968, Hays spent several years in the Amateur Athletic Union leagues. He played in three national tournaments and was chosen to the AAU All-Stars team that played the Soviet Union’s national team in 1971.
Hays holds master’s degrees from Eastern New Mexico (physical education) and Eastern Washington (athletic administration).
His wife, JoAnn (Willoughby), is from Lovington, N.M. She holds a master’s degree in reading from Southeastern Oklahoma State and a master’s degree in gifted education from Northwestern Oklahoma State. She earned teacher of the year honors in Alva (1983) and at Putnam City Will Rogers Elementary School (1985), Edmond Summit Middle School (1990) and Edmond Santa Fe High School (2001). She is now retired from Edmond Public Schools. In 2011, she was inducted into Eastern New Mexico University’s Education Hall of Honor.
The couple lives in Edmond. They have two daughters, Stacie and Michelle, and four grandchildren. Michelle and her husband, David Lynn, have two children, daughter Mackenzie and son Danny, while Stacie and her husband, Charlie Michael, have two sons, Cale and Tate.
