The UCLA women’s basketball team lost an integral member
of its family on Monday when it was announced that Bruin assistant
coach Tia Jackson agreed to join the Duke women’s basketball
coaching staff beginning in June.
Jackson, a native of Salisbury, Md., said the decision was
primarily based on the chance to join one of the nation’s
best programs and the opportunity to be closer to her family. She
notified current UCLA coach Kathy Olivier and the Bruin players
Thursday evening of her decision to leave Westwood.
“Being an assistant coach for the past 10 years, I have
witnessed the up-and-coming teams in the NCAA, and Duke has proven
themselves to be one of the nation’s elite,” said
Jackson on Monday. “Duke has become a powerhouse in this
game, and becoming a part of that is a thrill.”
Leaving behind a Bruin team that has only made it to the NCAA
Tournament twice in her five-year stint at UCLA, Jackson will be
joining a Blue Devil program that has advanced to the Sweet 16 each
of the last six years, including three Final Four appearances
during that time.
While many women’s college basketball analysts considered
Jackson a potential candidate for several vacant head coaching
positions around the country, Olivier was not surprised that
Jackson would swap one assistant coaching position for another.
“The climate has changed in women’s
basketball,” Olivier said. “You need to have a lot of
head coaching experience to be a head coach now in our sport, but
her position is that much more marketable now. She has aspirations
to become a head coach someday, and it’s important for her to
broaden her coaching experience in different environments around
the country.”
Jackson was not only largely considered one of the
country’s top assistant coaches, but she also had the
reputation of being one of the nation’s most effective
recruiters.
Serving as UCLA’s recruiting coordinator, Jackson was
instrumental in landing consecutive top-10 recruiting classes in
2002 and 2003, helping lure top prospects and McDonald’s
All-Americans such as Nikki Blue and Noelle Quinn to Westwood. For
now, that burden will fall squarely on Olivier, who said she hopes
to fill the vacant assistant coaching position relatively soon. She
already has a few candidates in mind.
“Recruiting is and will always be a challenge, but UCLA
still presents a very attractive package,” Olivier said.
Along with recruiting, Jackson will be serving many of the same
functions for Duke women’s basketball coach Gail Goestenkors
that she did at UCLA, including scouting, practice planning and
instruction.
“It’s not one thing. Tia did a lot that we’ll
miss,” Olivier said. “She does a great job in
recruiting, and does a great job with players. Our players were
very connected to her. Change is never fun, but they’re happy
for Tia.”
“It’s hard because she’s a big part of the
family and a big reason for the success of the program,”
Quinn said. “She’s a great coach, so I knew one day she
was going to make a big move, but I didn’t know she was going
to make it my second year here.”
Prior to arriving in UCLA in 2000, Jackson served as an
assistant coach at Virginia Commonwealth (1996-1999) and Stanford
(1999), at which point Olivier recognized something special in
Jackson and lured her to Westwood.
Jackson also enjoyed a brief stint playing in the WNBA in its
inaugural season in 1997, when she was picked ninth overall by the
Phoenix Mercury.