STARKVILLE — As he introduced Nikki McCray-Penson as the eighth head women’s basketball coach in school history on Tuesday, Mississippi State Athletic Director John Cohen echoed a familiar tone in his opening remarks.
Cohen lauded McCray-Penson as “a proven winner,” and “a dynamic recruiter,” and “someone who understands, demonstrates and instills discipline while creating a sense of family.”
But for all the cliches and positive spin in Cohen’s wording, his description merely scratched the surface of McCray-Penson’s complex and evolving identity.
“I’m a competitor,” she said via Zoom on Tuesday. “My DNA is winning championships. I want to be playing on the last day every season. That is a beautiful thing. I know what it feels like, and I know what it tastes like. It’s a beautiful thing.”
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As a prep standout just outside of Memphis, McCray-Penson had all but committed to Middle Tennessee when Pat Summitt caught wind of her game. Hitching the university plane from Knoxville to Collierville, Summitt and trusted assistant Holly Warlick decided to gauge her skills in person.
Arriving at the gym, the Tennessee contingent headed toward the building only to see McCray-Penson walking away from it. As tip off came and went, the 5-foot-11 guard wasn’t on the floor. Time ticked by. The first-quarter buzzer sounded. McCray-Penson still hadn’t played.
Finally entering the game in the second quarter, she backed up her film. Summitt and Warlick saw the rugged defense and dynamic offensive skill set they were eagerly awaiting — but not without questions.
Later they were informed McCray-Penson had missed the first quarter because she had forgotten her uniform and had to run home to get it.
“I’m like, ‘McCray, how did you forget your uniform?'” Warlick recalled with a laugh.
Committing to the Volunteers, McCray-Penson experienced her share of growing pains in Knoxville. She frequently showed up late to team activities. Summitt secured her a watch to expedite the adjustment process. It didn’t work. The team contacted McCray-Penson’s mother, Sally Coleman. Eventually, it clicked. McCray-Penson twice earned Kodak All-American honors and was named the SEC player of the year in 1994 and 1995. Her 1,572 points still stand as the 18th-best mark in school history.
“I will say this, from (forgetting her jersey) ’til where she is now, she has grown up and matured so much off the court,” Warlick said. “And I’m sure if some of her kids may do something knuckleheaded, she can relate to them because she did it herself.”
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Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer guided Team USA through the weaving underbelly of a raucous arena in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Wandering around bends and through tunnels, VanDerveer’s squad finally found its way onto the floor. With the team greeted by 10,000 screaming fans, the playing surface was surrounded by armed guards to ensure the team’s safety during its 1993 qualifying game against the hometown Brazilians.
Despite her stellar college credentials, McCray-Penson barely made the cut for the trip. As VanDerveer toyed with her short list in weeks prior, the final roster spot came down to the Tennessee product and one other player. Chatting with assistant coach Amy Tucker on the decision, VanDerveer was bluntly advised to bring her along.
“(Tucker) flat out said to me, ‘Do not leave the country without Nikki McCray,” VanDerveer recalled.
A defensive stalwart in Knoxville, McCray-Penson was charged with guarding Brazil standout Hortencia Marcari — a future member of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the FIBA Hall of Fame.
Keeping Marcari at bay, McCray-Penson’s lockdown defense helped Team USA to a win over the Brazilians — a game they later avenged in the semifinals of the World Championships while McCray-Penson was still in summer school at Tennessee.
“She’s a very nice person, but you get on the basketball court, and she’d steal that ball from a grandmother,” VanDerveer quipped. “Nikki doesn’t play.”
It was just a glimpse into McCray-Penson’s on-court toughness; she brought a comparable discipline and competitiveness to her early forays into coaching.
Following a nine-year WNBA career in which she thrice was named an All-Star, the former Tennessee standout kicked around the idea of rejoining the college game. Catching wind of her interest, former Western Kentucky coach Mary Taylor Cowles chatted with Summitt about McCray-Penson’s potential fit with the Hilltoppers.
“Oh Mary, she’s the second-hardest-working kid I’ve ever coached. She’ll be great,” Summitt said.
When she joined Cowles’ staff in 2006, McCray-Penson showed clear devotion to her new post. Tasked with scouting future opponents, she produced reports that still leave Cowles with a sense of awe.
“When it was Nikki’s time to do a scouting report, she was extremely detailed, and she didn’t want to leave one stone left unturned,” Cowles told The Dispatch. “I mean, she was going to make sure that our girls knew what to expect offensively, what they were going to throw at us defensively, baseline out of bounds, sideline out of bounds, pressing, it didn’t matter. Nikki was going to be on top of it.”
In two years at WKU, McCray-Penson helped the Hilltopers to the semifinals of the 2007 WNIT and the Sun Belt tournament championship in 2008. Though McCray-Penson had only been a college coach for just two seasons, others began to take notice.
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Among the crowd at a recruiting event in April 2008 while still the head coach at Temple, Dawn Staley spotted McCray-Penson.
A longtime friend and former Olympic teammate of hers, Staley strode up to the then-WKU assistant with a proposition. Staley thought she might get the head coaching job at South Carolina, but she wanted to make sure McCray-Penson would come with her.
Reticent to jump ship on Cowles after she’d given her an initial taste at college coaching, McCray-Penson was hesitant. Staley wouldn’t take no for an answer. Two weeks later, McCray-Penson was in the basketball offices in Columbia as Staley’s assistant.
“I had to talk Nikki into some things because she would second-guess it, and she knows me from being that way with her,” Staley said in a teleconference Tuesday. “I am just like, ‘Let’s go. There’s no black and white. You know what we’ve got to do.'”
Taking over a program that had reached the Elite Eight just twice since 1990, the Gamecocks had developed into a perennial SEC bottom-feeder. The new staff had other plans.
Moving with little advanced planning, McCray-Penson, associate head coach Lisa Boyer and fellow assistant coach Carla McGhee all lived in Staley’s house for the summer while Staley coached Team USA in the Beijing Olympics.
The trio convened at the basketball offices early and came home late. With the coaches living off peanut butter and jelly and McCray-Penson’s cooking, the summer set the foundation for a program that reached the Sweet 16 or better in seven of Staley’s first 11 years at the helm.
Despite the on-court success — including the 2017 national championship — McCray-Penson’s time in Columbia wasn’t without its difficulties. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012, she was eventually declared free of the disease after a year’s worth of treatments.
“She was as brave as anyone could be,” Boyer told The Dispatch. “She was really a fighter — I can’t say enough about her. Her will to to fight through things and to handle the situation. She never brought that to the office. She never missed a day at work.”
Following the 2017 season, McCray-Penson was offered the head coaching job at Old Dominion. Having already developed a rapport with ODU athletic director Dr. Camden Wood Selig — who had served in the same role at WKU during McCray-Penson’s tenure in Bowling Green — she accepted.
Building from the ground up with a fast-paced offense and the tenacious, pressing defense that had defined so many of Staley’s and Summitt’s teams, she helped the Monarchs progress from eight wins in 2018 to 21 wins in 2019. One year later, McCray-Penson was named Conference USA Coach of the Year after guiding ODU to a regular-season conference title.
“Getting to Old Dominion, I had to teach kids how to win,” she said. “That’s what I knew. I’ve been around winning programs my whole life. I took a really good blueprint from Tennessee and from South Carolina. I took that to Old Dominion, and I kind of shaped it the way that it fits me and my personality.”
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Holding a brief question and answer session following McCray-Penson’s introductory press conference Tuesday, Cohen revealed he has 30 notecards that describe the characteristics he looks for in a coach.
Of those, the former ODU coach’s name quickly fell in line with his beliefs and those of industry officials. But working through a search that narrowed between McCray-Penson and Louisville’s Jeff Walz, one voice was noticeably absent from the conversation.
“I think she means so much to everyone who’s ever coached,” Cohen — a former head baseball coach at MSU — said of Summitt. “I read her book, and I would have given anything to have been able to speak to coach Summitt through this process.”
Nearly four years to the day since Summitt died due to complications from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, McCray-Penson carries her former coach’s legacy to Starkville. She also bears the influences of Staley, Cowles, VanDerveer and the countless other coaches she’s endured in her over three decades in women’s basketball.
But as McCray-Penson moves on to her newest chapter in Starkville, the ghosts of coaches past and present are not a weight. Instead, they’ve helped form her identity. For if it weren’t for them, she might have forgotten her uniform one too many times.
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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