Drew Long was announced as the interim head coach for McMurry Women’s Basketball on August 5, 2021. After one season, it was determined that the War Hawks had their leader as former VP for Student Affairs and Intercollegaite Athletics Sam Ferguson officially removed the interim tag on March 7, 2022. McMurry pushed the upper tier of the American Southwest Conference and the NCAA Division III West Region to the wall on several occasions in the 2022-23 campaign, compiling a 12-12 record which featured a 6-0 start. He's led a pair of all-ASC honorees during his time as head coach.
Prior to rejoining the coaching ranks at McMurry, Long was the Deputy Director of Athletics for Internal Operations at Abilene Christian University for six years. Before ACU, Long worked as an NCAA Division I men’s basketball assistant coach with stops at the University of Colorado (2007-10) and the United States Air Force Academy (2010-15). He also has NCAA Division III experience, serving as the sole assistant at Southwestern University during the 2006-07 season. He also spent one season at Faith West Academy in Houston as the director of athletics and head boys’ basketball coach, leading the team to a 26-9 record in 2015-16.
At ACU, Long was responsible for the internal operations of the department, including game day operations, facility management and construction, as well as administrative oversight of many of ACU’s athletic programs. On the court, Long’s roles as an assistant at Air Force included coordinating and implementing the offense, managing and organizing the program’s recruiting database and serving as the program’s liaison to the compliance office, among other duties. At CU, he was responsible for player development, game preparation and recruiting. He also worked as CU’s men’s basketball operations coordinator and video coordinator prior to his promotion to assistant coach. His year of coaching at Southwestern included recruiting duties, on-court workouts, game prep and video editing.
A Houston native, Long graduated from Northwestern in 2004 with a degree in communications. He lettered two seasons on the Wildcats’ basketball team for head coach Bill Carmody. After graduation, he served as the director of operations for the Houston Swoosh AAU organization and went on to coach a variety of youth basketball teams and clinics across the state of Texas.
Long and his wife, Dr. Melissa Long, currently reside in Abilene and have three daughters: Alice, Christie and Emery.
