Coach Bev Smith added Willette White to her staff Friday as the Oregon women’s basketball team’s new assistant coach.
White will join the Ducks at the start of June after coaching for six seasons at Northeastern University.
With 25 years of coaching experience at the college level, White was seen as a perfect fit for both coaching and recruiting, Smith said.
“We are very excited about Willette joining the Duck coaching staff here at Oregon,” Smith said in a University press release. “She is widely recognized throughout the profession as one of the nation’s premier coaches and recruiters. Willette … brings a wealth of coaching experience and knowledge that will be an invaluable asset to our program.”
While at Northeastern, White compiled a record of 64-109 and helped guide the team in transitioning from the America East
Conference to the Colonial Athletic Association. Four CAA teams reached postseason play in 2006.
After an 8-21 2005-’06 season that saw the Huskies finish 11th in the conference and reach the second round in the CAA Tournament, White resigned midway through March and planned to pursue a sports managing position elsewhere.
With her resignation, Northeastern became the second school that did not win a conference title under White. She did so at her four other stops.
She now returns to the Pacific-10 Conference, where she has coached UCLA and Washington.
As an associate head coach with the Bruins, White helped lead the team to three-straight appearances in the NCAA Tournament and to their first Pac-10 title in the 1998-’99 season. They reached the Elite Eight as a three-seed that same year.
At Westwood, she worked with future WNBA talent such as Maylana Martin, a first round pick in 1999.
White did similar work in her native state of Washington before landing at UCLA. She was an assistant coach for the Washington Huskies for eight seasons. While there, the Huskies earned the
program’s highest ranking ever at No. 3 in 1990. Under coach Chris Gobrecht, Washington was co-Pac-10 champion that same year and the top seed in the Mideast Region. It was one of seven NCAA invites that White helped the team garner.
During White’s stay, Washington’s win percentage climbed to .754 and the Huskies won three conference titles.
Prior to Washington, White coached at Iowa State for the 1984-85 season. She served as a graduate assistant at Ohio State under current Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer the previous two seasons. The Buckeyes earned at least a share of the Big Ten Conference crown during each of those seasons.
White’s coaching career started in 1982 at her alma mater, Idaho. She wasted little time in helping the Vandals win an outright conference title. They were champions of the Northwest Empire League that year with a 14-0 conference mark.