Lady Vols head basketball coach and former standout player Kellie Harper will headline the 2022 Sports Advisory Council Benefit Dinner, the FHU Athletic Department announced Wednesday. The event is scheduled for Friday, April 22 with the meal starting at 6:15 p.m. with the program to follow.
Harper is in her third year at the helm of the Lady Vols program after playing for the team from 1995-99 under the legendary Pat Summitt, and is only the third Lady Vols coach in the NCAA era of women’s basketball.
Before coming back to Tennessee this year, she was the head coach at Missouri State for six years where she led the Lady Bears to a Missouri Valley Conference Tournament title and a NCAA Sweet 16 appearance in 2018-19.
While playing for Pat Summitt and the Lady Vols, Harper was a point guard for three National Championship teams in 1996, 1997 and 1998. Her senior class won 131 games while only losing 17, and they won two SEC regular season titles in 1998 and 1999 and three SEC Tournament titles in 1996, 1998 and 1999. In her junior season, she led the Lady Vols to a 39-0 record. In the National Championship game against Louisiana Tech, she scored a career-high 20 points on 4-of-5 shooting from behind the arc and was named to the 1998 All-Final Four Team.
Harper is one of just 11 women’s basketball coaches to lead three different schools to the NCAA Tournament. She has appeared in the postseason in 12 of her 15 years as a head coach.
In addition to the Sweet 16 appearance in 2018-19 with Missouri State, she led the Lady Bears to the big dance in 2015-16 as well as three appearances in the WNIT. She led North Carolina State to the NCAA Tournament in 2009-10 with two WNIT appearances, and she took Western Carolina to the tournament in 2004-05 and 2008-09. In 15 total seasons as a head coach, Harper currently holds a 302-214 record.
She is the 2019 Kay Yow Coach of the Year recipient and has been named the conference Coach of the Year twice (2019 MVC, 2007 SoCon).
Harper is the wife of John Harper, who has been an assistant coach on her staffs at Western Carolina, NC State, Missouri State and now Tennessee. They welcomed their son Jackson in November of 2013 and their daughter Kiley in June of 2018.
For information go to gofhulions.com and click on “Giving” to find SAC Benefit ticket information or call 731-989-6900.
