Sacred Heart’s Donna Moir Leads With Grace, Grit & Unmatched Legacy
Donna Moir is the heartbeat of Sacred Heart athletics — and has been for more than 33 years. She’s an eight-time girls basketball state championship coach and also serves as the school’s athletic director. Success at the private Catholic school of more than 800 students on Lexington Road is unmatched.
“I feel I’m exactly where I want to be,” says Moir, who started four years for legendary coach Bunny Daugherty in the 1970s. “I loved my time at Sacred Heart as a player. It’s always felt like home. I felt like I could coach here and make an impact on a lot of people.”
As a freshman starter, Moir helped lead the Valkyries to the 1976 state title. A basketball and golf standout, she was recruited to play both sports at the University of Cincinnati.
“I played for Ceal Berry (former Assumption basketball coach) at UC,” Moir says. “She called me a couple months ago and said, ‘Let’s get together and play golf.’ We went to Hurstbourne, and she admitted she could have used me differently.”
Moir was an outside shooter.
After her career at UC, she tried playing professional golf on the LPGA Tour. It didn’t work out, so she and her husband, Rick, returned to Louisville.
“I was homesick,” she says. “We were traveling all over the place. It was tough.”
After a call from Beverly McAuliffe, the first laywoman principal at Sacred Heart, Moir received an offer.
“When she called me and said, ‘People say I should hire you as our basketball coach and athletic director,’” Moir says. “I didn’t hesitate.”
She’s been a staple there ever since.
“I really like seeing other sports have success,” she says. “I try to go to everything. We’ve had 117 games so far this year.”
Swimming has 36 state championships, cross country seven, soccer eight, field hockey four, and volleyball two.
“I don’t know anything about archery,” Moir says. “I sat down with our coach and had a two-hour discussion about the sport. He’s built our archery program. When I came here as athletic director, the sports really weren’t that good. I remember taking over a 9-18 basketball team.”
It took a little while in basketball.
“I remember coaching my first game, and we were playing Mercy at Trinity. Mercy scored 100 points on us,” she says. “I wasn’t mad — I was like, ‘How can we get better?’”
The Valkyries did get better — much better.
SHA trailed the entire game in the Seventh Region Tournament finals against Mercy one season. After a missed free throw, Crystal Kelly rebounded and passed to Carly Ormerod, who fed J.J. Spears for a layup — and a one-point victory.
Moir remembers the play to this day.
“I told the kids, ‘We practice this. We get the ball and go to the basket,’” she says.
But she also remembers the anxiety of that game.
“We were down 17 points, and I thought, ‘If we lose, when I go in Monday, I’m getting fired,’” she says.
One of Moir’s strongest qualities is her ability to lead.
“She’s pretty even keel with her coaching on the court,” says her husband, Rick, of 41 years. “When she’s dealing with her coaches and other teams’ coaches, she’s pretty even keel.”
Junior guard Tootie Jordan has seen that calmness firsthand.
“I would say she doesn’t get mad,” Jordan says. “She has a positive attitude. She has so much positivity it kind of overwhelms her getting mad.”
One Saturday afternoon against one of the top teams in the state several years ago, Anderson County slipped a long-range shooter into the game.
“I think she banked one in from near midcourt. I can’t believe we didn’t pick her up,” Moir says.
She was frustrated but measured. That season, the Valkyries won the first of five straight titles.
“Referees should love calling her games,” says her daughter Mackenzie, an assistant athletic director. “She never yells at the refs. She never yells at her players. I think that’s what makes her a good coach.”
Her overall record entering the 2025-26 season is 839-280, which includes eight state titles, 12 regional titles, and 28 district championships.
“We kind of thrived on playing each other,” says retired Mercy coach Mark Evans. “No one loves Sacred Heart more than Donna. She knows her strengths and has surrounded herself with good people.”
“She concentrates on her players. She prepares her players. She doesn’t let outside noise affect her,” adds Mackenzie.
Moir says she knows other schools might be envious of her program.
“They don’t see the work we put in,” she says. “Our girls play AAU all summer. We practice — we run sprints.”
SHA has a winning culture that attracts some of the best players — Ormerod, Kelly, Grace Berger, Josie Gilpin — and the list goes on.
Miss Basketball this past season, Johnson, lived in Shelbyville. According to Moir, she was going to play at Shelby County.
“She went to some meetings, and no one showed up,” Moir says.
Johnson came to SHA, started four years, and won four championships. Now, she’s a freshman at LSU.
“I spoke with Z the other day, and she says she’s winning all the conditioning drills,” Moir says, who keeps up with her former players.
This summer, Moir coached the Kentucky All-Stars to a sweep of Indiana in the annual series. She had been 0-4 as head coach and assistant before the sweep.
Moir played for Kentucky High School Hall of Famer Bunny Daugherty at SHA.
“Ms. Daugherty,” as Moir still refers to her, coached everything — and never yelled at players or officials.
Education remains front and foremost at SHA.
“It’s not easy — the academics at Sacred Heart,” Jordan says. “If you don’t make the grades, you don’t play.
“Academics come way before athletics,” she adds. “She knows how you’re doing in the classroom as AD. You have to make sure you have good grades before getting on the court or the field.”
“It’s hard,” says Bender, a 2011 graduate and the golf coach. “Some people say college isn’t as hard as Sacred Heart.”
Moir is such a staple at the school that she never thinks about retiring.
“I jokingly say when July 15 comes around and conditioning begins, I won’t see my wife until after basketball season,” Rick says.
Moir comes from an athletic family. Her father, Bob, played football at the University of Louisville with Johnny Unitas. Her daughter Leslie won four state championship golf titles at SHA. Her brother Rick played football at St. Xavier.
“Donna knows her strengths,” Evans says. “Her staff came to see me when I was at Oldham County to talk strategy. She has surrounded herself with good people.”
When Evans’ team won a title, Moir was one of the first to congratulate him. “She’s a class act from a great family,” he adds.
A quality Moir possesses is that she can make a person feel good about themselves. She always greets people with a smile.
“She loves helping people,” Mackenzie says. “Even if you don’t play sports, she helps. She’s such a giving person.”
Moir and the Valkyries will try to make it six state titles in a row.
“Our kids get exposure. We play in big tournaments,” Moir says.
“We’re going to come with a different swag this season,” Jordan says. “People think because we don’t have Z, we’re not going to be as good. We’ll have that underdog mentality.”
Moir hopes to lead the Valkyries to another state championship.
