Melissa McFerrin
	Hometown: Cassville, Mo. Last College: Univ. of Missouri, 1983 Position: Head Coach, Sixth Season

After not making back-to-back post-season appearances since the 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 seasons, the University of Memphis women's basketball program needed a change in direction and got it with the hiring of Melissa McFerrin, who has taken her Tigers teams to three straight post-seasons heading in to her fifth season at Memphis.

After an appearance in the WBI championship game in 2010, McFerrin has guided the Tigers to back-to-back WNIT postseason bids (2011, 2012) and in 2012, guided the Tigers to a second-place finish in Conference USA and a second-straight appearance in the C-USA tournament semifinals. En route a third straight postseason, the Tigers had four players from the 2012 squad earn Conference USA honors, including C-USA Player of the Year Jasmine Lee, three-time all-C-USA honoree Brittany Carter, C-USA Defensive Player of the Year Ramses Lonlack and second team all-conference honoree Nicole Dickson. For her work guiding the Tigers back to the upper echelon in Conference USA, McFerrin was awarded a contract extension that will keep her at the helm of the program through 2016-2017.

A new challenge awaits McFerrin and her Tigers team beginning with the 2013-2014 season, as the university becomes a member of the BIG EAST Conference, joining one of the elite college women's basketball conferences in the country. Memphis will play in Conference USA for the upcoming 2012-13 season, and on July 1, 2013, will join Cincinnati, Connecticut, DePaul, Georgetown, Houston, Louisville, Marquette, Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall, SMU, Temple, UCF, USF, and Villanova in the BIG EAST Conference.

McFerrin was hired at Memphis on April 19, 2008, and immediately began overhauling a program that was 10-20 in 2008 to a team that was 25-8 and advanced to the 2012 Conference USA semifinals just four seasons later. Included in that overhaul has been the Tiges' locker room, which underwent a $1.3 million renovation that delivered two new locker rooms, a new officials' locker area, a new team video room, a renovated player lounge and a coaches' locker room and meeting area. The second phase of the renovation began in the fall of 2012, and includes a brand new weight room and athletic training facility, complete with therapy pools. Also new thanks to McFerrin's fundraising prowess are two new endzone scoreboards in the Elma Roane Fieldhouse, including a video scoreboard on the North end of the building.

On the court, McFerrin has upgraded the talent and the schedule, adding Big 10 and Big 12 opponents to the Memphis schedule and inking three nationally-ranked recruiting classes. She has also added additional home games at FedExForum, the NBA home of the Memphis Grizzlies, making Memphis one of the few women's programs in the country to play multiple home games in an NBA venue. In the summer of 2011, Memphis also took its game out to an international scale, playing four games over a 10-day stretch during a tour of Italy.

Off the court, the Tigers continue to help their student-athletes grow, actively participating with Girls, Incorporated of Memphis and on various community service projects, including the construction of an all-abilities playground, participating in breast cancer awareness and arthritis awareness walks, distributing shoes to children in need, making visits to Memphis-area children's hospitals and talking to various schools and youth groups about the challenges of making healthy choices.

Working in conjunction with the Center for Athletic Academic Services, McFerrin has already watched as 11 Tigers have crossed the stage in her first four years with a college diploma in hand (LaToya Bullard, Brittany Carter, Danay Collier, Savannah Ellis, Tehani Goldsmith, Jessica Jackson, Jasmine Lee, Paris Leonard, Starkitsha Luellen-Higgins, Ashley Thornton, and Alex Winchell).

Prior to her hire at Memphis in 2008, McFerrin was named the 2008 Patriot League Coach of the Year in her fourth season at American University in Washington D.C. Her 2007 American team advanced to the Patriot League championship game and her 2008 squad won the school's first-ever Patriot League regular season championship, finishing with an 18-14 overall record. That team won 11 of 12 games down the stretch, advancing to the post season for the first time since 1997-98 with a WNIT bid. In four seasons at American, McFerrin compiled a 50-70 record and guided five different players to all-conference honors, while two other players earned all-freshman honors.

"I am extremely excited and honored to be a Tiger," McFerrin said. "I know that the University of Memphis is about winning and that is exactly the type of place that I want to be."

Prior to her stint with American, McFerrin was an associate head coach at the University of Minnesota from 2002-2004. She helped Minnesota to a 50-15 record, including an NCAA Final Four appearance in 2004 and a Sweet Sixteen berth in 2003. She signed two recruiting classes ranked in the top 20 at Minnesota, and helped guide two Kodak All-Americans, including WNBA players Lindsey Whalen and Janel McCarville.

McFerrin's time at Minnesota came after a five-year association with the WNBA. She began her affiliation with the WNBA as an assistant coach with the New York Liberty from 1997-1999, assisting with coaching duties for the 1997 WNBA Championship runner-up Liberty squad. She moved to the Washington Mystics as an assistant coach in 1999-2000, taking over as the Mystics' General Manager in 2000. As the GM, she guided a team that made its first-ever WNBA play-off appearance in 2000, and handled all player trades and draft decisions before joining the coaching staff at Minnesota.

Her WNBA stint followed a 14-year coaching career that made three different stops. McFerrin began her coaching career as a graduate assistant at Wayland Baptist University in Texas from 1983-84. She was then hired as an assistant coach at Central Michigan University, where she helped the Chippewas to a 95-77 record in her six seasons, including a 1985 Mid-American Conference championship.

She left Central Michigan in 1990 to become an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at The Ohio State University. At Ohio State, she helped the Buckeyes to a 118-90 record and a 1993 Big Ten championship and an NCAA National Championship runner-up. That 1993 squad benefited from a 1992 McFerrin recruiting class that was ranked No. 1 in the nation and featured WNBA player and three-time Olympian Katie Smith, one of seven Buckeye recruiting classes to be nationally-ranked under McFerrin's watch at OSU. In 1996, McFerrin helped guide the Buckeyes to the NCAA Second Round before leaving the following season for the WNBA.

A native of Cassville, Mo., McFerrin was a four-year letterwinner and starting point guard for the University of Missouri Tigers from 1979 to 1983. She helped Missouri to a 1983 Big Eight tournament championship and NCAA tournament berth and a 1982 NCAA Sweet Sixteen appearance, earning Big Eight honorable mention honors and Scholar-Athlete awards along the way. She graduated cum laude with a degree in secondary education from Missouri in 1983, and received her master's degree in physical education from Central Michigan in 1988.