Jaida Williams, the head coach of women’s basketball at Coastal Carolina University, sits down with us in this episode of the 35,000 Feet podcast and gives us insight into her journey as a basketball coach. She tells us about her team’s foreign tour to Cuba, how she started coaching, the highlights of the 2019-2020 season, and more!

In this episode, we discuss:

• How this past season went for the Coastal Carolina University Basketball team (0:11)

• How Coach Williams got into coaching (2:59)

• Jaida’s favorite travel experience (4:48)

• One thing that no one knows about Jaida (10:30)

• Jaida’s advice to athletes wanting to play in college (12:06)

• Jaida’s next adventure (14:40)

Highs and Lows of Coastal Carolina University Women’s Basketball 2019-2020 Season

Morgan: Can you just tell us about the highs and lows of your current season?

Jaida: I think that the highs of our season are still to be determined. I think that having so far won 25 games, having the opportunity to be on the sideline, when a player scores 51 points, having multiple players be players of the week, have all four of my seniors reach a thousand points scoring. Having had some incredible gains, those have been some incredible highs and have been awesome, awesome opportunities for our team. I think that it, gosh, the lows are so far few and in between, there really hasn't been a low this season.

We've had three losses. So if I had to attribute lows, I would say those, those never feel good. And so I would have to say our goods have definitely outweighed our bads this season.

Morgan: That's the best. I love like when you look back on a season and it feels so rewarding.

Jaida: Yeah. Yeah, it has been. This has been that season and I'm grateful to God for it.

Morgan: That's awesome. Do you feel like a lot of that has come down to like culture on the team or just work ethic?

Jaida: Absolutely. I think a combination of both. I'm going down my roster, you would see that these kids have grown up together. And so I would say experience, work ethic and then the ability to build a culture in a way that we want it to have been built is the reason why we've seen such success this season.

Morgan: That's awesome. No, I played at a small junior college for volleyball and so I can relate to, and like the whole like work ethic and culture team and like growing together. So I think it's awesome that you're building that culture for your team.

Jaida: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Morgan: Yes. And I see that you're competing for the Sunbelt title.

Jaida: We are. For us, we have won 15 games in conference and hopefully, we'll have the opportunity to win again on Saturday. And hopefully, when that happens, we will be crown Sunbelt champions or co-champions at that time. So yeah, it's a really exciting time. The first time in school history that has ever been accomplished. And so prayerfully, God-willing, I will be able to do that on Saturday.

Morgan: Your team's going to do awesome. I just feel it.

Jaida: Thank you so much.

Morgan: Yes. No, especially with the positive outlook you have on your team. Like, it's going to be awesome. It sounds like your season's just great and it's going to keep being great.

Jaida: I pray. So God willing, God willing.

Jaida Williams’s Coaching Start and Highlights of Her Career

Morgan: I love that. Well, I can tell you're such a good coach. How did you get there? Like how did you get to be a college coach?

Jaida: I think that, how did I get to be a college coach? My college coach actually gave me my first opportunity coach Paul Thomas, who is the head coach at St. Mary's in California. And he gave me an opportunity. Actually, it was kind of funny. We were coming back from, I don't know if it was regional sweet 16, something. We were coming back from that when I was in college and our assistant had announced that she was off to be married and wants to be a stay at home wife, wishes us the best. And at that time I still needed some courses to finish my degree.

And so I'd asked coach, what can I do? And he's like, "I'd love to have you. I want to pay for your classes or help you finish, but I need you to work." And so I was like, cool. And he had me join his staff that year, which I thought was such an awesome opportunity. And that's where my coaching career started, honestly.

Morgan: Wow.

Jaida: Yeah. But thank God for great coaches, because without him, I would have never gotten my start, without his consistent and support of myself, I don't know that my life unfolds the way that it has and he's been amazing. Such a pillar of hope, he continues to be one of my biggest cheerleaders. I'm so grateful that I even had the opportunity to play for him.

Morgan: That's awesome. I love seeing like where college coaches come from and how they get there, the different stories. So thank you so much for sharing.

Jaida: No, no, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be a part of the podcast.

Morgan: This is awesome, yes. Well, I'm curious, what's been your highlights of coaching?

Jaida: Oh God, there's been so many. I think that there's been so gosh, so many highlights of coaching. It's really hard to really choose one. Having the opportunity to take my team to Cuba this summer was a really cool experience in recent memory. Because prior to going people were talking to my team of, "You guys are going to Cuba, is it even safe there? Are you even allowed to go there? Why is your coach taking you there?" And so my team was actually really afraid to go to Cuba. And so like they were on the plane they didn't want to go because people told them that it wasn't going to be a great experience. And then once we got over there, they had the time of their lives. They absolutely had a great time. Enjoyed the people, enjoyed the scenery, enjoyed just being in Cuba. And they, they absolutely it was an amazing experience. And so I was really, really, really, really, really, that's probably been one of the coolest things that's happened in recent memory.

Morgan: What inspired Cuba? That sounds awesome.

Jaida: It does. Well every four years, with the NCAA, you can take a trip overseas. You can take your kids on what's called a foreign tour. And so, this senior class is super special to me for obvious reasons. I mean, for the things that they've been able to put out for... They grew up with this program, they stuck with me in a transfer. This is a transfer crazy generation and they stuck with me through the entirety of their careers. And so I wanted them to have something special. And so thankfully my boss, Matt Hogue and Dwayne Beam, my AD and associate AD, they allowed us to have this experience. And so when we were picking foreign tours, it was between a couple of different places, but our men's team had gone to Cuba and when they first opened the borders and allowed Americans in. And so they said it was an amazing time. And so I was just like Cuba, I'm from Florida, I'm from Miami. Cuba has, it has such a heavy influence down in Miami.

I was like I want my student-athletes to be able to experience this because at that time we didn't know if the borders were going to completely shut. They'd been shut for some things and it's just, Cuba's like that, that mysterious land and I wanted them to be able to experience it because we don't know what it's going to look like in a couple of years or what even be had the same opportunity. And so that's how we ended up choosing it.

Morgan: That is so cool. I know I'm like, it sounds like an awesome experience for your team and I'm glad that you have that relationship with your team that it was so special.

Jaida: It was, it was awesome. We had a great time.

Coach Jaida Williams’s Most Memorable Travel Experiences

Morgan: So you've been a Cubist or anywhere else, like, do you have any other memorable travel experiences?

Jaida: I have a ton of travel experiences. And a lot of my offseason, outside of being a coach, I love being, I love traveling. Love it, it's my muse. I love learning about different cultures and different places. But two of my... I've been a lot of places, but two of my favorite trips have been to Dubai. Dubai had to have been probably one of my top trips ever. You get treated like a princess, your money, the American dollar stretches so far over there. The sights are incredible. It was a beautiful place. I went with seven of my girlfriends and so we had a great time in Dubai. And then the other place that I really, really, really enjoyed was going to was South Africa. I got to go to Johannesburg, South Africa, and I got to go to Cape Town, South Africa.

And such beautiful countries I enjoyed them so much that I do have a very strong desire to get back there. But once I want to visit some other parts of the continent of Africa before I go back to South Africa.

Morgan: Those sounds so fun. I've never been to Dubai. Like you're inspiring me.

Jaida: Dubai is amazing. Go. It's amazing. It was an incredible experience.

Morgan: Wow. That sounds awesome. Is that like a place you'd want to take your team?

Jaida: If they wanted to go out, I'd go for real. If they wanted to go, I'd go. I'd absolutely go, I'd go anywhere. I love our kids... What was so funny is 10 of the 13 student-athletes did not have passports before our trip to Cuba. And so after we came back from Cuba, they were all like, "Oh my God, I want to, I want to travel, I want to see the world." And that just made my heart full because anyone that has traveled or knows travel knows that it's the greatest educator that anyone could have. And you learn so much and you change. You can never come back the same from traveling. And so my heart was so full because I felt like they got the educational piece from it as well.

Morgan: Oh, it's true, you can learn so much from going to different places.

Jaida: Yeah. Yeah.

Morgan: Oh, I love that. Well, thank you so much for telling me about those fun travel experiences. I feel like I was a part of it.

Jaida: No problem. It's my muse, I love to travel.

One Thing That Noone Knows About Coach Jaida Williams

Morgan: What's one thing that no one knows about you that you can share?

Jaida: I think my team would be surprised to know that I am truly an introvert. Because I'm always coaching and talking, I really am like when I'm at work, I give everything I have. But when I am home, I am to myself. I am either film or reading a book or when I have free time, I just like quiet time. I am very much an introvert that my team, I don't know that they would ever think so because I'm so outgoing when I'm at work.

Morgan: I think it's cool when like you have like, say you're an introvert and you can make that work and no one even would even know.

Jaida: I think when I did the Myers Briggs test, I think I was INJTP.

Morgan: Oh, introvert yeah.

Jaida: Yeah. But it was... And I've taken it multiple times and I'm just like, and every time my coworkers laugh, when they see it and I'm like, no guys, it takes a lot out of me to interact and be on all the time. But I do it for my job because I love it and I get to do the greatest, in my opinion, one of the greatest jobs in the world and that's the ability to coach college student-athletes.

Morgan: Wow. Well, I can sense the passion you have for it. And I can tell that like, that's why your team is doing well because they look up to you and that passion.

Jaida: Yes, absolutely.

Coach Jaida Williams’s Advice to Athletes

Morgan: Well, thank you for telling us about that. If you were an athlete wanting to play for a team in a university, what would your advice be?

Jaida: My advice would be to work extremely hard at whatever it is that you want to do. So if you want to go to a school, put in the work, but make sure your conditioning is together and make sure that your ball handling, your shooting, whatever it is, you put that together and you work really, really hard at it and let nothing get in the way of you on whatever that dream is. Study the grades and mimic their games. There are so many great women in the game from Sylvia Fowles, Seimone Augustus, Maya Moore, Candace Parker. There's so many great... watch film, actually study and become obsessive with it. It's what I do as a coach.

Anytime that there is... My goal, my dreams are to one day being an Olympic coach. And so I study Dawn Staley, I studied Geno Auriemma. I studied those that have been great. What is it that you're doing that's making your programs so good. And I try to learn about it. And so I would give that same advice to young people of, whatever it is you want to do, do it. Find whoever does it at the greatest, at the highest level, and try to either be mentored by them. Try to reach out and say what makes you great, or you don't even have to disturb their happy. Watch film, watch film on them. Study their social media, study their behaviors, their habits, and kind of adapt some of those as your own and start building from there.

Morgan: That's so true. I agree with the whole like film thing, putting in that hard work. Hard work, it's like that quote, like, "Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn't work hard."

Jaida: Absolutely. Every time, every single time.

Morgan: Does your team focus on like, in practice, you focus on anything in particular?

Jaida: We focus on things that mean a lot to us which would be defense, which would be scoring, which will be competition. And so those are the three things that you'll find in my practice every single day. We're focusing on defense, our shooting, and our ability to compete. And those are things that I hold true that are core values for me and I think that my team has adopted those as well.

Morgan: It's awesome. I can tell that you're just, you're focusing on those fundamentals and your team is just going to excel so much, even more than what it already is at.

Jaida: Peripherally from your mouth to God's ears, I hope so.

Morgan: It will, it will, especially because of your hard work and dedication that shines through.

Jaida: Thank you.

Coach Williams’s Next Adventure

Morgan: What's your next adventure?

Jaida: With the coronavirus going around, I think that I'll just go and park it in the US for this year anyway, until we kind of get a hold on whatever this is. I guess my next adventure outside of our game on Saturday is going to be the new Orleans this weekend for the Sunbelt tournament. And so honestly, I don't have any big overseas plans. If I do, I'll probably go to the Caribbean, I love the Caribbean. So I may go somewhere in the Caribbean. Saint Lucia's something that's on my list. So maybe just do Saint Lucia or something, but nothing too extravagant, nothing too far, nothing until we kind of figure out what's really going on out there.

Morgan: Yes. No, I get that. I get that, that's smart. That's a big concern with travelers now.

Jaida: Yeah. I think universities have banned overseas travel for now until they can kind of figure this whole thing out.

Morgan: Yes. But wow. No, those sound like awesome places in New Orleans. That'll be awesome and the Caribbean, Saint Lucia, those are all going to be good places, so I'm like that's exciting.

Jaida: Me and my mom, we could drive cross and like, we got a bunch of beautiful places here in the US.

Morgan: It's so true.

Jaida: So until we figure out this stuff, I'm fine with just enjoying my own country.

Morgan: I love that. Yes. And there's so much to see here. So much.

Jaida: Yes, there is.

Morgan: What are you most excited about, or like, excited about for this season?

Jaida: I'm excited about the potential of winning a Sunbelt conference tournament and regular-season title.

Morgan: Thank you so much for just letting me take an insight into your wonderful team and like the passion that you have for this sport and for traveling.

Jaida: Thank you so much. I appreciate you guys reaching out to us.

Follow Coastal Carolina University Women’s Basketball

• Team Twitter

• Coach Jaida Williams Twitter

Podcast made in partnership with Acanela Expeditions

Theme Song - I’ll Just Be Me by Gravity Castle