Female Strength Coaches Breakfast Keynote Speaker
With over 20 years of overall coaching experience under her belt, Joi Williams recently completed her third season as the head coach at UCF and seventh season as a head coach. In her three seasons rebuilding UCF, Williams has already compiled an impressive list of accomplishments, including leading the Knights to the 2009 NCAA Tournament after her team won the title at the 2009 Conference USA Tournament.
In 2008-09, her most successful season at UCF, the Knights were picked to finish last in C-USA before posting 11 wins and tying for second place. The Knights 11 league wins in 2008-09 matched the program's total in its first three seasons in C-USA combined, and Williams' peers took notice by voting her the 2009 C-USA Coach of the Year. Also in 2008-09, UCF players won the C-USA Player of the Week award a league-high five times.
The season became more memorable in the postseason, when the Knights won four games in four days to capture the C-USA Tournament Championship and the programs first NCCA Tournament berth since 1999 and third overall. The Knights finished the season at 17-17 after a hard-fought 85-80 loss to third-seeded North Carolina in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
In her first season at UCF in 2007-08, with freshmen playing a nation-high 91 percent of the minutes, Williams led UCF to its first 10-win season in three years. She has compiled a 38-53 record in her three years leading the Knights.
Williams came to UCF after four seasons as the head coach at Murray State (2003-04 to 2006-07), where she helped the Racers to a WNIT berth and the programs first 20-win season in 18 years. The Racers had a 54-61 overall record in her time rebuilding Murray State.
In her final campaign with the Racers in 2006-07, Williams led Murray State to a 21-10 mark and a trip to the WNIT. The WNIT berth marked only the second postseason appearance in Murray State history. The Racers also advanced to the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) Championship title game. Murray State finished the campaign among the national leaders in several statistical categories, including free-throw percentage, field-goal percentage and scoring offense.
Williams spent the 2002-03 season as the recruiting coordinator at Clemson University.
Prior to Clemson, Williams was the assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at the University of Florida for 12 seasons (1990-91 to 2001-02). During her tenure, the Lady Gators participated in nine NCAA Tournament tallied a 247-121 overall record (.671 winning percentage).
Williams helped attract five All-America selections to Florida, and nine standouts who were recruited by and played under Williams were selected in the WNBA Draft. The list of WNBA draftees includes DeLisha Milton-Jones, who was the 1997 Southeastern Conference Player of the Year, the first UF player ever selected to the Kodak All-America First Team and a member of the gold-medal winning 2000 and 2008 U.S. Olympic basketball teams. Milton-Jones also earned gold medals with the 1998 and 2002 USA World Championship teams.
Born and raised in Jacksonville, Williams played on the collegiate level at the University of South Florida from 1984-88. She was a four-year starting point guard and currently ranks among USFs career assist leaders. She earned a bachelor's degree in marketing from USF in 1988.
