Mississippi Coast basketball coach dies after fight with cancer

Scott Watkins
·1 min read

Former Mississippi Coast basketball coach Breanna Ainsworth Halley lost her long battle with breast cancer on Wednesday.

Halley served as the head coach of the girl’s basketball team at Our Lady Academy for two seasons before serving as an assistant on the girl’s basketball team at Pass Christian for her mother Greta Ainsworth.

Halley was first diagnosed in 2016 and battled four different rounds of the cancer.

Ainsworth retired from coaching earlier this year in order to spend more time with her daughter.

Breanna Halley discusses the challenge of under going cancer treatment, teaching and coaching.
Breanna Halley discusses the challenge of under going cancer treatment, teaching and coaching.

According to a Facebook post from her husband, Bay High assistant football coach Zach Halley, some of her last words were, “God must need me up there because he has a basketball team to coach.”

“She was invaluable to the kids,” Pass Christian athletic director Ricky Long said. “In the classroom, she’s been a mentor to those kids. On the basketball court, she’s like a second mother to those girls. How she cares for them, shows love to them, supports them, I don’t know that we’ll get back. She’s meant that much to that program and to this school.”

A visitation will be from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday and a funeral will follow at St. Matthew the Apostle Catholic Church in Perkinston.