Associate Head Coach Betsy Harris

Betsy Harris enters her fifth season as an assistant coach at UWA, after serving one season under Head Coach Becky Crowe in 2000-2001. Harris brings eight years of quality coaching experience to West Alabama, along with an outstanding collegiate and professional playing career.

Harris spent the 2002-2003 season as an assistant coach at East Central Community (Miss.) College, following a one-year stint as an assistant at Troy University. As a collegian, she was a four-year starter in the University of Alabama backcourt, and helped lead the Crimson Tide to three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances and one Final Four. She earned Second Team All-SEC, NCAA Midwest Regional MVP and Final Four All-Tournament honors as a senior in 1994 and holds the record for most career 3-pointers made at UA.   

After graduating from Alabama with a B.S. in Sports Management, Harris embarked on a four-year professional basketball odyssey, complete with stops in Spain, Iceland, Sweden, Greece, Switzerland and WNBA training camp with the Detroit Shock in 1998. Harris completed her M.A. in Teaching at UWA in 2001.

Along the way, Harris coached in various foreign locales, basketball camps and spent one season (1998-99) as a volunteer coach at Newton County High School.

She is the daughter of Pat and Linda Harris of Decatur, MS.  She has a twin sister (Patsy) and an older sister (Becky).  Her brother, Jeff, is a Military Police Colonel in the Army and has served a year in Iraq.  She has three nieces (Courtney, Mary Jordan, and Bailey) and three nephews (Reagan, Andy, and Dylan).

Harris’ Grandfather, James Coburn Harris, is in the Mississippi State University Athletic Hall of Fame, lettering in basketball, baseball, and football.  Her parents have the “Dr. Pat and Linda Harris Endowment Scholarship” in the Entomology Department at Mississippi State University.

In her spare time, Harris enjoys reading, country music, the outdoors, college football, and spending time with her family.  She is single and resides in Livingston with a Jack Russell/Rat Terrier mix dog named Dakota and a cat she rescued named Bo.