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For the first time in five years, the LaGrange College women’s basketball team will have a new leader at the helm. Destiny Lane-Frazier has stepped up to heed the call and will serve as the new head coach. 

“I was caught off guard when [LaGrange College athletic director Terlynn Olds] called,” she said. “When she offered me the job I was literally jumping up and down I was so excited. I talked with my children about it, though, because I am very flexible, but they are my world. They were super excited and I was excited and thrilled because this is such an honor.”

The previous coach, Jasen Jonus, went 61-28 across the last four seasons and spent 11 years on staff coaching basketball at LaGrange College before taking the position of head women’s basketball coach at Oglethorpe University. When the job popped open, Lane-Frazier jumped on it in a heartbeat.

“When I saw the previous coach was leaving I knew that this job would be something that I wanted to do,” Lane-Frazier said. “I waited until the job was posted and then immediately sent them all my information. LaGrange was always a job that I had kept my eye on.”

Before taking a year off from coaching to get her doctorate, Lane-Frazier served as an assistant women’s coach at Berry College for two seasons. It was a real learning experience for Lane-Frazier, who got to see LaGrange College firsthand during her time as a Viking.

“When I was at Berry College we played them and they were a team that you definitely had to be at your best for, it seemed like LaGrange is a school that is known to win in the past couple of years under Coach Jones,” Lane-Frazier said. “I know that they’ve been doing well with winning and kind of competing for that title. And I noticed they had good basketball players when we played them. I noticed they were very passionate about the game and you can tell those teams that really care when you see them.”

The Panthers will be coming into this season hungry after the disappointing end to the 2023-24 campaign. LaGrange College went 18-7 and finished second overall in the regular season standings in the Collegiate Conference of the South, but was upset by Belhaven in the semifinals of the conference tournament.

“Last year they beat Belhaven twice during the regular season, so that was an upset and so right now, these girls are ready to get back at it,” Lane-Frazier said. “They’re ready to get back to the conference tournament and they’re looking to upset some teams, they all are looking to be the conference champions.”

This will be Lane-Frazier’s first head coaching position at the collegiate level, but this is far from her first rodeo. Before making the jump to Berry in 2021, Lane-Frazier was a head coach and an assistant coach in the high school ranks in Alabama.

“I felt that I had accomplished all my goals that I had wanted to do in high school and had been starting youth camps, doing things that hadn’t been done,” Lane-Frazier said of leaving the high school coaching scene for the collegiate level. “I was a 7A state championship coach, as an assistant, a 7A state championship runner up, and had always wanted to coach at the college level and recruit girls to play in my system.”

Lane-Frazier led Sylacauga High School to the subregional during the 2020-21 season and was named Talladega County Girls Coach of the Year.

The basketball court has been home for Lane-Frazier as far back as she can remember. Before entering the coaching ranks, Lane-Frazier was a Division I basketball player at Jacksonville State. Lane-Frazier passed on a chance to play at the University of Alabama to stay close to her hometown of Asheville, Alabama and ended up playing over 100 games for the Gamecocks during her four years with the team.

“JSU was the first school to offer me my 10th grade year in high school,” she said. “And they stayed there for a long time. I had a lot of offers. I didn’t have any high major DI offers except Alabama.

“My dad went to school there (Jacksonville State) and a lot of my family went there and it was great because my family got to see me play.”

Her family will have to travel a little bit further to see her make her college basketball head coaching debut. The new era for the Panthers is well underway as Lane-Frazier has already claimed her office at LaGrange College and eagerly awaits the first game in November.