A Florida native, Joi Williams Felton returned to the Sunshine State on March 29, 2007 when she was named the 11th head coach in UCF women[apos]s basketball history. One of the top recruiters in the nation, Williams Felton comes to Orlando after four successful seasons as the head coach at Murray State.
In her final campaign with the Lady Racers, Williams Felton led Murray State to a 21-10 mark in 2006-07 and a trip to the Women[apos]s National Invitation Tournament. The 20-victory season was the first for the program in 18 years. The WNIT berth marked only the second postseason appearance in Murray State history.
Williams Felton is no stranger to the Sunshine State. Raised in Jacksonville, she starred on the collegiate level at USF from 1984-88. Williams Felton spent 12 seasons on the staff at Florida, serving as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator under Carol Ross from 1990-02. During Williams Felton[apos]s tenure, the Gators participated in the NCAA Tournament nine times.
In her final year at Murray State, Williams Felton guided her squad to a 15-5 Ohio Valley Conference record, which was good for second in the league standings, as the Lady Racers advanced to the OVC Championship title game. Following the regular season, Joi Scott was named the OVC Player of the Year and Amber Guffy earned a spot on the All-OVC Second Team.
Murray State finished the campaign among the national leaders in several statistical categories, including free-throw percentage, field-goal percentage and scoring offense.
Williams Felton was hired as Murray State[apos]s head coach in March 2002 and quickly made an impact. The Lady Racers were selected to finish ninth out of 11 teams in the OVC preseason poll, but Murray State concluded the regular season with four-straight victories to finish fifth.
In 2005-06, Murray State paced the OVC in scoring and was ranked 14th nationally in free-throw percentage.
Williams Felton[apos]s players also excelled off of the court as Lady Racers were recognized as OVC Commissioner[apos]s Academic Honor Roll recipients on 12 occasions during her tenure. In the spring of 2007, Guffy was named to the CoSIDA District Four Academic All-America Third Team.
While at Florida, Williams Felton was recognized as one of the top recruiters in the country. During her time in Gainesville, the Lady Gators went 247-121 (.671). Williams-Felton was responsible for the arrival of every student-athlete into the program.
She helped attract five All-America selections to Florida and nine standouts who were recruited by and played under Williams-Felton were selected in the Women[apos]s National Basketball Association Draft, including DeLisha Milton-Jones of the 2002 WNBA champion Los Angeles Sparks. Milton-Jones was the 1997 Southeastern Conference Player of the Year and the first UF player ever selected to the Kodak All-America First Team.
Prior to moving to Murray State, Williams Felton spent the 2002-03 campaign as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Clemson.
During the summer of 2005, Williams Felton served as a court coach for the United States National Under-19 team trials at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., assisting with the implementation of practice drills and training during the trials process.
Williams Felton played prep basketball at Bishop Kenny High School in Jacksonville before moving to USF. She was a four-year starter at point guard and currently ranks 11th on the Bulls[apos] career assists list.
Williams Felton graduated from USF in 1988 with a degree in marketing. She is a member of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and the Black Coaches Association and is married to Herman Felton.