She shortly moved into teaching: She was an assistant girls’s coach at Western Kentucky University for 2 years earlier than transferring to (*51*) Carolina in 2008, the place she joined Staley, her teammate on the 1996 and 2000 Olympic groups.
After serving to lead (*51*) Carolina to its first N.C.A.A. girls’s basketball title in 2017, McCray-Penson was employed for her first head teaching job, at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. She coached the workforce to a 53-40 file over three seasons; within the 2019-20 season, she led the Monarchs to a 24-6 file and was named Conference USA coach of the 12 months.
In 2020, she was named the top coach at Mississippi State University, however she resigned for well being causes after a 10-9 record in her only season there.
In 2022, Rutgers employed her as an assistant.
“Simply put, Nikki is a winner,” Coquese Washington, the Rutgers coach, who was a teammate of McCray-Penson’s with the W.N.B.A.’s Indiana Fever, instructed The Associated Press. “She has excelled at the highest levels of our game.”
McCray-Penson was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, in Knoxville, Tenn., in 2012.
Nikki Kesangane McCray was born on Dec. 17, 1971, in Collierville, Tenn. Her survivors embrace her husband, Thomas Penson, and her son, additionally named Thomas. Her mom, Sally Coleman, died of breast most cancers in 2018.
“We know there’s no cure,” McCray-Penson told The Clarion Ledger of Jackson, Miss., in 2020. “We live with it. Every day, you don’t let that define you. You live life. You make every day count. That’s what I saw my mom do.”
