NORFOLK, Va. — The tributes online continued to come in on the passing former 2-time Olympian, WNBA All-Star and ODU women's head basketball coach Nikki McCray-Penson who passed away at age 51 on Friday. No cause of death was given.
She won at the highest levels as a player under the legendary University of Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt, then later as an assistant coach at South Carolina with Dawn Staley where the Gamecocks won a national title (2017) to her time as head coach at Old Dominion University. McCray-Penson was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall Of Fame in 2012.
During her time with the Monarchs from 2017-2020, the team went from winning just eight games in the first year, to getting back to back 20 win seasons including 24-6 in her final season before going to Mississippi State.
Her death shook people who knew her to the core. Among them, current ODU women's head coach Delisha Milton-Jones who thought of her as family.
"Just the magnitude of knowing I can't pick up the phone and call her", she said. "I can't call my sister so that just hurts in a deep way."
The two first met as players back in 1998 at the World Championships and have been friends ever since. Old Dominion athletic director Dr. Wood Selig also had fond memories of McCray-Penson. They go back to their days when he was AD at Western Kentucky and she was an assistant coach.
"She was such a live wire and so passionate about basketball", he said. "She loved what she did. Loved student/athletes. She was just such a joy to be around."
So when McCray-Penson got the job with the Bulldogs, she recommended that Milton-Jones replace her at ODU.
"She was a great friend", she said. "She was going to check on you. She was going to hold you accountable."
Milton-Jones said she was going to miss her friend. "We have lost one of the pillars of the game of the basketball."