Dayton native to head women’s basketball

Tamika Williams Jeter has become the 10th Flyer women’s head basketball coach in program history.

She is returning, she said, to “the city that made me.”

Graduating from Dayton’s Chaminade Julienne High School, she was a two-time Ohio Player of the Year and the No. 1 recruit in the nation. She went to the University of Connecticut as part of the nation’s top recruiting class. In four years there she collected two national titles.

In 2002, the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx took her sixth overall in the draft. In the same year in the off-season, she began her coaching career as a graduate assistant at Ohio State. She retired from the WNBA in 2009.

She has served as assistant coach at four Power 5 schools: Kansas, Kentucky, Penn State and Ohio State. During her tenures, those schools appeared in eight NCAA tournaments. Last season she was head coach at Wittenberg University, leading the Division III Tigers to their first national tournament appearance since 2015.

Besides setting individual records at C-J, she set collegiate and pro records.

She made 67.8% of her field goal attempts while with Minnesota, a record not eclipsed until 2020.

She made 70.3% of her field goal attempts at UConn, a record that  is still the highest ever in NCAA Division I women’s basketball.

When she was presented at a March 3 news conference as Flyers women’s basketball team head coach, she said, “Dayton represents my family, my foundation and my heart.”

Restraining emotion, she said, “I only cry when I have children.”

“I only cry when I have children.”

But her eyes betrayed her. ... “Now my mom can come to every game,” said the Dayton native. “And if my dad were alive, he could hug me 25 times.”