MISSOULA — Britt Cooper, who won a national championship as a player at Montana Western and was later the head coach of the Bulldogs for two seasons, has joined the Montana women’s basketball program as an assistant coach.
“It’s a boon for me,” said first-year Lady Griz head coach Nate Harris, who had Cooper on his staff as a graduate assistant coach at Angelo State for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons, after Cooper played for current Lady Griz assistant coach Lindsay Woolley at Montana Western.
Cooper was an assistant under Woolley at Montana Western in 2022-23 before being elevated to head coach after Woolley departed for Utah State. All three coaches, all with head coaching experience, are now reunited with the Lady Griz.
“I get a really high-quality coach, somebody we had great familiarity with. It’s a huge win for us to get somebody who is probably overqualified for her position,” added Harris.
“It’s easy to feel her commitment to your success as a player. Our players at Angelo State knew they could count on Britt. Our players here will quickly learn Britt is someone they can always count on, which is an important characteristic in coaching.”
Cooper, Montana to her core, grew up in Harrison, basketball the most important game in town, maybe 15 girls in the high school when Cooper was a Wildcat, a dozen of them going out for the basketball team.
She followed the family pathway to Montana Western, where her mom played basketball, where her dad went to college, where her older sister went before her. “It’s been in our family and I liked coach Woolley,” Cooper said.
The Bulldogs finished last in the Frontier Conference when Cooper was a freshman, in 2015-16, but that only set the stage for the rise of the program in the years that followed.
Over Cooper’s final three seasons at Montana Western, the Bulldogs won 24, 27 and 30 games, playing in the NAIA national tournament in Billings each postseason.
Montana Western made the round of 16 in 2017, the semifinals in 2018, then won the championship in what felt like a home game in 2019 with a 75-59 victory over Oklahoma City. “The gym was completely packed in red. We had the home-court advantage without it being our home court,” she said.
Cooper was honorable mention All-Frontier Conference as a sophomore, second-team as a junior, first-team and an NAIA honorable mention all-American as a senior, totaling 1,085 career points and 890 rebounds.
Two weeks after Montana Western won the 2019 national championship, Harris was named head coach at Angelo State. Cooper knew she wanted to get into coaching, Woolley knew Harris from the coach’s time in Montana and knew Harris was looking to fill a GA position.
“I thought it would be a good opportunity to kind of test the waters and see what it was like,” Cooper said. “It was coach Nate’s first run at it, so it was fun watching him grow in that experience. He cares for all the girls and knows the game of basketball very well.”
The Belles went 18-10 in their first season under Harris, the team qualifying for the NCAA Division II South Central Regional before COVID forced a cancellation of the postseason.
“I really enjoyed Britt at Angelo. She’s very detailed, very measured. She’s so calm and is just a doer,” said Harris. “She’s really bright and the players loved her. They loved her approach and her willingness to do whatever is going to help young people to be successful.”
Harris left Angelo State after the abbreviated 2020-21 season to join the Lady Griz as an assistant coach. Cooper returned to the state as well after earning her master’s degree, to teach math and coach girls’ basketball at Harrison-Willow Creek High.
“I liked Texas but I love the mountains. I really wanted to get back to Montana,” Cooper said. “It was nice to get back to my hometown and explore the high school side of it to see if I liked it.”
She joined Woolley’s staff as an assistant at Montana Western for the 2022-23 season, then was promoted to head coach when Woolley moved on after 11 years at the school. The Bulldogs went 17-13 in their first season under Cooper, finishing third in the Frontier Conference.
“I like coaching a lot. It’s a chaotic lifestyle to live, but it’s a great lifestyle. At the end of the day, I want to help players become great people and help set them up for their future and obviously succeed on the court as well,” she said.
After Harris was named head coach of the Lady Griz in March and after he put all his early efforts towards recruiting and building Montana’s 2025-26 roster, he turned his attention to his staff, first adding Leia Beattie, now Cooper.
“It’s nice to be here with people I trust and respect, and work with them and continue to develop my coaching as well as helping them out,” said Cooper. “I know these guys and can be myself right away instead of holding back and feeling out where I need to be.”
Cooper has yet to reach the age of 30 but she has the résumé and experience of a much older coach, a championship player before diving into the coaching profession, working as a head high school coach, then a college assistant, then a college head coach.
“She doesn’t come off as a 28-year old. She comes off much more mature. She’s an older soul that way,” said Harris. “She’s a high-achieving, female role model for our players. When they look at our coaches, I want them to think, that’s somebody I want to one day be like. Britt is one of those people.”
