COLUMBIA, S.C. — Former South Carolina Gamecocks assistant basketball coach and college and pro basketball star Nikki McCray-Penson has passed away.
McCray Penson was 51-years-old. She most recently had been an assistant on the staff of Rutgers University's women's team.
“It’s hard to think about Nikki’s passing because all I can see is how fully she lived," USC Head Coach Dawn Staley said in a statement. "From her days as a brash rookie in USA Basketball to becoming my friend and colleague to the way she mentored young players, Nikki did everything with her whole heart. Every teammate, every coach, every player who spent time with her knew first that she cared about them as a person, and everything else came from that place. Her presence was something you could feel before you saw her because she had such light, such positive energy inside her no matter what was going on. I am heartbroken that cancer has taken that light from us, but I know that she would want us to be the ones to carry it on in her absence. I pray we all have the strength to do that for her and her son Lil Thomas.”
McCray-Penson was a standout guard for the University of Tennessee basketball team during their heyday in the 1990s under legendary coach Pat Summitt, where she was a two-time all-SEC selection.
She was a gold medalist on the 1996 and 2000 U.S. Olympic teams. During that tenure she got to know Dawn Staley, another member of the team, a relationship that she'd come back to years later.
She played one season in the ABL where she became an MVP before joining the WNBA in 1997. There, she was a three-time All-Star before retiring in 2006.
She was later elected to the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.
After her playing career, she switched to coaching, becoming an assistant at Western Kentucky.
In 2008, Dawn Staley would come calling, picking McCray-Penson to join her staff in Columbia as she looked to turn around a stalled program. McCray would help Staley build the team from a program that saw little success and small crowds to a national power that led the nation in attendance.
Among the big wins that helped change the culture was the recruitment of high school All-American A'ja Wilson, who was from Columbia. Wilson would become a three-time All-American and National Player of the Year with the Gamecocks.
"Heart hurts like crazy over this one!" Wilson said on Twitter after learning of McCray-Penson's death. "Such a fighter and a warrior with the sweetest gentle soul! Coach McCray you’ve helped me in many many ways and you were a true gift from God! Truly will be missed! No more suffering no more pain! God got a good one."
Staley and the Gamecocks would win their first national championship in 2017 with McCray-Penson on the sidelines But all that success would catch the eye of other programs, and months later, Old Dominion made McCray-Penson their head coach.
She eventually took over as head coach at Mississippi State in 2020, leading the program through COVID, but later stepped down for health reasons. She'd gone back to coaching last year at Rutgers.
McCray had struggled with her health for parts of the last decade. In 2013, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, which later went into remission.
"Our program, our sport and most importantly her family lost an amazing woman – mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, coach, mentor – today," USC women's basketball said in a statement. "Nikki McCray-Penson was part of our foundation and made us the program we are, one personal relationship at a time."