Dayton’s new women’s basketball coach is the ‘total package’

Richard Jeter, Tamika’s husband, joined her for one photo. Their sons, R.J., 6, and JoJo, 2, didn’t attend the press conference. Tamika worried they’d be too much a handful with so much going on, but they will be a big part of future days at the arena.

Deciding to move to Dayton, where Williams-Jeter grew up and made her name as one of the great players in the city’s history, was a family decision.

“This is just the life we live,” Williams-Jeter said. “My husband loves basketball. I love the game. We’re fine in this space. The people who know me best know I love a challenge. I took a D-III job not because I thought it was going to be easy but because I love a challenge.”

Williams-Jeter was at Division III Wittenberg last week conducting meetings with individual players when Athletic Director Brian Agler entered the room and said, “We need to talk.” She and Agler walked to The Steemer, Wittenberg’s indoor facility. He told her Dayton AD Neil Sullivan had called to ask to talk to her about the Dayton job. It opened Monday when Shauna Green left after six seasons to take the job at Illinois.

Williams-Jeter’s first reaction was, “I’m good,” at Wittenberg. Agler convinced her to think about it. It was as if Sullivan was speaking through Agler, she said, even though Agler would be losing a high-profile he coach he brought to Wittenberg last May.

“You’ve got to look at it,” he told her. “You need to interview. This is perfect. You’ve done everything for us.”

Williams-Jeter finished her player meetings and then talked to Agler again. Then she talked to Sullivan, who gave her his pitch. Things moved quickly from there with several interviews. The hiring was announced publicly at 10:30 a.m. Saturday. Agler attended the press conference Monday, and Sullivan thanked him in his remarks.

“He was super graceful,” Sullivan said. “Here’s a gentleman who made an amazing hire a year ago, and now I’m calling. But the way he handled that and the care he has for Tamika really came through.”

Before the news of her hiring broke, Williams-Jeter met with her Wittenberg players on Saturday morning. That meeting hit her hard. She didn’t think she would cry, but she cried “like a baby,” she said. This was the first group she worked with as a head coach, and she led it to an 18-8 record and the program’s first NCAA tournament appearance since 2015.

“I know what we did that year,” she said. “I know where we started. I know where we finished. A lot of people don’t want to ride the process, but I’ve had to do that so much in my life, and I’ve been coached by so many people who believe that every day is a new day and you’ve got to get those goals. They couldn’t see how good they were getting. There was just a lot that went into it. Some of them cried. I know some of them were angry.”

Wittenberg President Michael Frandsen sent her a text message with a teardrop emoji.

After the tearful goodbye to Wittenberg, Williams-Jeter collected herself, walked outside and then talked to her new team on Zoom on her phone. In the age of social media, when news travels fast, she didn’t want them to hear the news any other way. She told them she was on the way to Dayton. She then met them in person, hugged them all and started planning for the season ahead.

Among Williams-Jeter’s first jobs will include re-recruiting everyone on the team plus the two incoming freshmen who have signed: Kam’Ren Rhodes and Saija Cleveland. That’s a big job for any new coach these days because players can transfer without sitting out a year. Williams-Jeter didn’t see any indication she would lose any player currently on the roster.

Williams-Jeter takes over a program in transition after the departure of three sixth-year seniors and another senior — four of the team’s top-five scorers.

“We will always maintain our expectations every year,” Sullivan said. “At the same time. I’m not naive to the roster situation. We graduate a lot. Typically, in these types of things, you have incoming kids commit or decommit. It moves all over the place. There’s not a lot of long term in sports, but for us, that’s what we’re behind. It’s not about the next month or the next three months or even the first season. It’s about the runway to the future.”

In Williams-Jeter, Dayton gets a coach with deep ties to the area. She’s a 1998 Chaminade Julienne graduate. She also has connections all over the game. Basketball greats Sue Bird and Tamika Catchings were among those who reacted to her hiring on Twitter.

“You’re going to be great,” Catchings wrote. “As always!”

Williams-Jeter played for another legend, Geno Auriemma, at Connecticut, winning two national championships and gained coaching experience at four Division I programs — Kansas, Kentucky, Penn State and Ohio State — before moving to Wittenberg last May.

Sullivan and his staff were ready when Green left, and even though UD moved quickly, Williams-Jeter was on a long list of potential hires and had to earn the job in the interview process.

“We were open to all types of candidates: head coaches; assistant coaches; former coaches,” Sullivan said. “We really didn’t limit ourselves. Initially, we had done a lot of work, but we didn’t limit ourselves. After multiple phone calls, an initial phone call and a couple in-person meetings, I just want to be really clear that Tamika earned this job by who she is, the way she represented herself, the way she interviewed, the way people talked about her, her basketball acumen. It was the total package.”

Williams-Jeter’s local ties were evident in the press conference in that one of her high school friends, former Flyer Brooks Hall, a Troy grad, showed up.

“Through mutual acquaintances, we connected in high school,” Hall said. “I always had respect for her as a player because she dominated the game around here. But then when we actually met, to find out how humble and down to earth she was, that’s when we became friends. We’ve been friends ever since. She has a humble confidence. You don’t have to worry about her being arrogant when she has every right to be if she wanted to be. Not many have achieved what she has achieved. But just meeting her you would never know it. She greets everybody with a friendly face and a friendly smile. That, combined with her resume, is why I’m confident that the Dayton’s women’s program is going to another level.”