Former UConn forward Tamika Williams-Jeter named head coach at DIII Wittenberg University

Former UConn forward Tamika Williams-Jeter has been named the new head coach at Division III Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, the school announced on Friday. Williams-Jeter, who played for the Huskies from 1998-2002 and won three national championships, had spent the last two seasons as an assistant coach at Ohio State.

“I am extremely honored to continue to help young minds grow, to engage in my Dayton and Springfield community, and create a winning culture on the court. I want to do everything I can for Wittenberg University,” Williams-Jeter said in a release.

Wittenberg’s athletic director is Brian Agler, a former WNBA coach who selected Williams-Jeter with the sixth pick in the 2002 WNBA Draft as head coach of the Minnesota Lynx. Wittenberg has not made the DIII NCAA Tournament since 2015 and has eight appearances in program history.

Williams-Jeter, a native of Dayton, Ohio, was the top recruit in the nation when she committed to UConn as part of the program’s famed 1998 class which also included Sue Bird, Swin Cash, Asjha Jones and Keirsten Walters.

Over her four years in Storrs, Williams-Jeter won the Big East Freshman of the Year in 1999 and was named the Most Outstanding Player at the 2000 Big East Tournament. She finished her career with 1,402 points and 431 rebounds.

The Minnesota Lynx selected Williams-Jeter with the sixth pick in the 2002 WNBA Draft and she joined the coaching staff at Ohio State that same year as a graduate assistant. She spent the first five years of her career with the Lynx and set a then-WNBA record for the highest field goal percentage in league history at 66.8 percent in 2003. In 2008, Minnesota traded Williams-Jeter to the Connecticut Sun, where she played the final year of her WNBA career.

Over the same span of time, Williams-Jeter was an assistant coach at Ohio State from 2003-08, during which the Buckeyes made the NCAA Tournament every season and won four Big Ten titles. In 2008, she took a job at Kansas but only spent two seasons there before she stepped away from coaching and moved to Texas.

Williams-Jeter decided to return to the sideline in 2014 when she took a job at Kentucky. In those two seasons, the Wildcats made the NCAA Tournament each time and even advanced to the Sweet Sixteen in 2016. She moved on to Penn State in 2016 before returning to Ohio State in 2019.

This is Williams-Jeter’s first time being a head coach.