FGCU ‘feels like family’ to new women’s head basketball coach
- Drew Sterwald
- Contributors: James Greco, Photos
5 – minute read
Whenever Raina Harmon considered moving on from her assistant coaching job at the University of Iowa, she compared other schools to her benchmark program: Florida Gulf Coast University.
“I knew it was going to take something truly special to pull me away. If I was going to leave, it had to be for the right fit,” Harmon said during her April 8 introduction to Southwest Florida media and FGCU Athletics supporters. “Florida Gulf Coast University was the measuring stick. Every time my name came up for an opening, I’d ask myself, ‘Is this place like FGCU? Do they have the culture, the style of play, the hunger to win right away?’ Now I’m at that school.”
Harmon had scouted the Eagles. She had coached against them. Like the Eagles, she and her Iowa Hawkeyes faced the Oklahoma Sooners at the NCAA Tournament in March in Norman, Oklahoma — with the same fate. While Harmon was traveling back to Iowa City, she checked on openings and hirings across the country, as coaches do around March Madness, and discovered opportunity knocking at FGCU.
“Oh, snap! We got action,” she recalled saying to herself. “I wasn’t sure if my name would mean anything to the search team down here and to the administration. This is the place that I’ve really been comparing everything else to. I might as well just ask if they’re interested.”
Colin Hargis, FGCU director of athletics, was interested. Two weeks later, he officially introduced her as the women’s basketball head coach at the media conference. Harmon quickly stood out from other prospects, he said, praising her energy, commitment and experience.
“We have a rich history here, and I wanted someone who embraced that,” Hargis said. “We set out to find a great person with passion for FGCU, passion for the sport of basketball and passion for developing student athletes. She’s beloved and respected by her peers and her student athletes. She brings a wealth of success from the national stage to FGCU.”
‘Keep chasing greatness’
During eight years as an assistant coach at Iowa, Harmon cultivated a culture of excellence with a 208-63 record and a combined five Big Ten Conference titles. She helped solidify the team’s winning pedigree and cement the Hawkeyes’ reputation as a women’s basketball powerhouse. Under Harmon’s leadership, Iowa University earned eight berths in the NCAA tournament and became the first team in conference history to compete for back-to-back National Championship titles.
Her achievements also included coaching and developing several WNBA draft picks, notably Caitlin Clark, the No. 1 overall pick and 2024 Rookie of the Year. The Indiana Fever superstar — whose fame helped boost the sport in recent years — shared her newfound FGCU fandom on Instagram (“It’s go Eagles now!! @raina15 EARNED IT!!!!!”).
“Coach Raina has the unique ability to be able to recognize elite talent but also recognize unbelievable character,” Clark said in a statement. “She will continue to develop young women into great players. I have zero doubt she will be successful, and FGCU made a phenomenal hire.”
Before joining Iowa, Harmon spent five years as an assistant women’s basketball coach at Central Michigan University, where she helped the Chippewas punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament in 2013. From 2010 to 2012, she served as director of women’s basketball operations at the University of Michigan.
At FGCU, she inherits a successful brand: nine straight Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament titles; 11 NCAA Tournament appearances; 30 or more wins in three of the last five seasons and 25 or more wins for 15 straight years; and the reputation for “Raining 3s.”
“I understand what the community wants here. I understand what the brand is,” Harmon said. “The championship mindset is there from the top down. These young ladies … they’re used to winning championships, and they’re going to be coached by someone that’s used to winning championships. So I think it’s a great marriage. From the very beginning, everything about FGCU felt aligned with who I am.”
That includes the style of play and the team spirit: “We’re gonna play fast, and we’re gonna play for each other,” Harmon said. “The goal is not to just maintain success — it’s to build on it and to keep chasing greatness. We’ll do it with integrity on the court, in the classroom and in the community.”
Family on and off the court
Harmon mentioned how moved she was to be so quickly embraced by the Eagle family. Within hours of her appointment being announced, she heard from nearly every head coach in FGCU Athletics, she said. The softball team even sent her a welcome video they shot as they prepared for a game. The feeling of camaraderie impressed her.
“You don’t find that everywhere, and I knew then even more that this was exactly where I’m supposed to be,” Harmon said. “The culture here — it feels like family.”
Coaching at FGCU means more to her than a chance to join that Eagle family and reach a higher rung on the success ladder — a career climb that began as an eighth-grade boys basketball coach in Detroit. With her move to Southwest Florida, Harmon is now just two hours away from her mother, who lives in Tampa.
“To have the chance to do what I love at a university that I respect in a place that brings me closer to the people that I love — that’s a gift that I don’t take lightly.”