Nikki McRae-Penson, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and three-time WNBA All-Star and all-American point guard for the University of Tennessee women’s basketball team, died Friday. She was 51 years old.
Her death was announced by Rutgers University as she was entering her second season as an assistant coach for the women’s basketball team. The school did not disclose where she died or the cause of her death. MacRae Penson was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013.
“To my sister, my friend, my dugout partner, my teammate, my fast food snack, my basketball fanatic, my fellow Olympian, my gold medalist and now my angel. Thank you.” McRae Penson was an assistant coach in South Carolina for nine years. wrote on twitter.
At the University of Tennessee, McRae Penson was a two-time All-American and three-time Southeastern Conference selection. She helped lead the Lady Vols He won three regular-season conference titles and two conference tournament titles.
She started out as a defensive specialist but has evolved into an offensive force.
In 1994, near the end of McRae-Penson’s break season, when she was averaging 16.3 points per game, Basketball Hall of Fame coach Pat Summit said, “I thought she was too defensive. It bothered her what was being said,” he told The Tennessean in Nashville. Junior. “She wanted to develop a comprehensive game, and she did.”
In the same article, McRae-Penson said: Pat is not going to motivate you. ” She added, “Her attitude about herself has to be made clear.
Sports columnist Sally Jenkins, who worked with Summit on three books, said in a phone interview that there was a special connection between the coach and McCray Penson. “Pat was glowing when Nicki came to visit,” she said.
He added, “Many of the players who came to Tennessee were like a 15-story building, but the elevator only went up to the 10th floor. I found a way to do it, and Nikki was one of them.”
After graduating from the University of Tennessee with a Bachelor of Education degree in 1995, McRae Penson was part of the US team that won the gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics. “We want to be the greatest basketball team ever,” McRae Penson said after leading the team with 16 points and nine rebounds in an early-round victory over South Korea.
Overall, she averaged 9.4 points per game in the tournament and provided a stifling defense that capped her opponent’s scoring. Four years later, McRae Penson averaged 5.1 points when the US team won gold in Sydney, Australia.
By then she had turned professional. She preceded her WNBA as a women’s league in the short-lived Columbus Quest of the American Basketball League. Average of 19.9 points per gameIn 1997, he led the team to the league title and was voted Most Valuable Player.
She didn’t stay at ABL for long. After one season, she moved to the Washington Mystics of the WNBA, which was created by the National Basketball Association.
“I saw what the NBA could do to promote women’s basketball,” she told the Associated Press in 1997.
He spent four seasons with the Mystics starting in 1998. Average of 15.4 points per game He was also selected for the All-Star Game three times. Over the next five years, she played in Indianapolis, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Chicago, but she didn’t find much success. She retired in her 2006.
She soon made her way into the world of coaching. She was a women’s assistant coach at Western Kentucky University for two years before she moved to South Carolina in 2008, where she joined teammate Staley on the 1996 and 2000 Olympic teams. I was.
After leading South Carolina to its first NCAA women’s basketball title in 2017, McRae Penson was hired for the first time as a head coach. Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She led the team to a 53-40 record in three seasons. She led the Monarchs to a 24-6 record in 2019-20 and was named Conference USA Coach of the Year.
In 2020, she was named head coach of Mississippi State University, but resigned due to health reasons. After going 10-9 in her only season.
In 2022, Rutgers hired her as an assistant.
“Simply put, Nicky is a winner,” Rutgers coach Coxie Washington, who was McRae Penson’s teammate during the WNBA’s Indiana Fever, told the Associated Press. “She performed well at the highest level of our competition.”
McRae Penson inducted into the Hall of Fame Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, 2012 in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Nicky Kesangane McCrae was born on December 17, 1971 in Collierville, Tennessee. Her survivors include her husband Thomas Penson and a son also named Thomas. Her mother Sally Coleman died of breast cancer in 2018.
‘We know there is no cure’ McRae Penson told Clarion Ledger. 2020 in Jackson, Michigan. Don’t let it define you every day. you live life cherish every day. That’s what I saw my mother do. ”
