As a child, Tasha Butts stayed busy, from cheerleading with her cousins to going to work with her father, who was a janitor at a local middle school.
But the time she would spend with her father helped foster the now-LSU assistant coach’s passion for basketball.
Butts and her brother would accompany their father every day after school. The two would rush to help clean so they could grab a basketball and get on the court.
And her brother didn’t go easy on her.
“My brother would beat me up, knock me down,” Butts said. “But that’s when I think my love really, really grew. Just having access to a gym and a basketball every day, all day.”
At times, Butts would be the only girl playing among 15 of her male cousins.
Butts said the older competition never scared her. Playing against her brothers and cousins allowed her to be resilient, she said. From then on, she never backed down from a challenge.
Some days she would cheer with her female cousins, but when she stepped foot on the court, her male cousins knew she meant business.
“I was in the third grade walking up to my mother’s middle school and then playing against the middle school girls,” she said. “When I got to middle school it then went to high school. I’ve always leveled up, so to speak, and played against bigger and better just because I didn’t want to be mediocre.”
Butts played basketball throughout high school. She picked up softball, too, but her skills in basketball were undeniable. Her parents told her if she wanted to take basketball seriously, she would have to let softball go.
After she discontinued playing softball, Butts found herself being recruited to start her collegiate career. She was stubborn with her decision process, though.
“I resisted,” Butts said. “I did not want to go to Tennessee starting off. My aunt played at Tennessee in the 80s and so I had this thing about me that I’m going to make my own name, my own way. I’m not going to go.”
She changed her mind when she talked to former Tennessee assistant coach Mickie DeMoss and late legendary Tennessee Coach Pat Summitt.
Butts joined Tennessee’s women’s basketball team for the 2000-01 season and went on to become a two-time champion with the Lady Vols.
Initially, DeMoss met Butts when she was in high school and she noticed Butts was an all around great athlete.
“She could shoot the three,” DeMoss said. “She could handle the ball, could post up as a guard. She could just do multiple things and score in multiple ways and it caught our eye … she never disappointed me as far as the way that she performed.”
Following her time at Tennessee, she moved on to play for the Minnesota Lynx in the 2004 WNBA season and then eventually played overseas.
Throughout Butts’ time in the Tennessee program, DeMoss said she saw her potential.
DeMoss left to be a head coach at Kentucky during Butts’ senior year, but she couldn’t help offering her former player a graduate assistant spot at Kentucky whenever she graduated.
Did she always want to be a coach?
“Absolutely not,” Butts laughed.
After she got “playing out of her system” she coached for nearly a decade.
“Tasha’s a type of person, you want her in your corner because once you establish that relationship with her she will go to battle and she’s in your corner forever,” DeMoss said.
Butts arrived at LSU in 2011 and followed her former coach Nikki Fargas. Fargas said she enjoyed coaching her.
“Being a former player, whom I coached, I’ll tell you it was a joy to coach her,” Fargas said. “She did whatever was asked of her and would always put the team first.”
After Butts was done playing in the WNBA, Fargas — then-UCLA head coach — offered her a job.
“I remember reaching out to her,” Fargas recalled. “She was contemplating and with her mom if to return and play in the league and I basically said, ‘You have a job opportunity with me at UCLA.”
The rest has been history.
Butts and Fargas have formed a close relationship, which includes Fargas doing a little dog sitting for Butts during the holidays.
“I don’t charge her,” Fargas quipped.
Fargas lauded Butts for her ability to connect with players and her leadership abilities.
Senior guard Rina Hill said she likes Butts’ “straightforward” approach.
“She’s very specific on what I have to do,” Hill said. “It’s easy for me to see what I have to do. She kind of guides me in the right direction.”
Butts works closely with LSU’s guards including LSU’s leading scorers junior Raigyne Moncrief and sophomore Chloe Jackson. This season, Moncrief has averaged 15.6 points per game and Jackson averages 13.2.
However, at the end of the day, Butts is a coach.
“Coaching is the last hat that we wear,” Butts said. “One day I may have to be a teacher, a psychologist, a psychiatrist … I love the fact that I can mentor our young women and help them prepare for life after basketball.”

Gallery • 1 Photos

Augustus Stark

LSU women’s basketball assistant coach Tasha Butts speaks with LSU women’s basketball head coach Nikki Fargas during practice on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2017 in the PMAC.