HAMPTON, VA (WTKR)- Hampton is home for Tamisha Augustin. After a coaching journey that has seen her bounce all around the country, she's back in hopes of turning her hometown team into a premier program.
Augustin was introduced as the Pirates' next head women's basketball coach Wednesday morning at the Convocation Center on campus. She's now in the driver's seat for her first college head coaching job after serving as an assistant since 2009. Many familiar faces were in the crowd, from family and friends to her middle and high school principals.
Doing the job in her own backyard makes it that much sweeter.
"I don't think you can pay for the support, familiarity, people that know you that want to help you build something special," Augustin noted. "We want fans and the community to pour into our current student-athletes and as we continue to recruit all over the country, we want that to be a staple, that this community is about Hampton University women's basketball."
Augustin has experience at every level. She was the head coach at her alma mater, Bethel High School, during the 2008-2009 season before jumping to the college ranks. Her first collegiate assistant job came at South Carolina State and she would experience stints at Marshall, VCU, Central Florida, Minnesota and Cincinnati.
She would serve as an assistant coach at Arizona from 2019-2021, helping the Wildcats to the Final Four and national championship game during her final season in Tucson. After jumping to the NBA G-League as an assistant, she has been an assistant coach at Florida for the last two seasons.
"She's been in the SEC, she's coached in the G-League," Hampton Director of Athletics Anthony Henderson noted. "For a women's basketball coach, it's hard to find those type of credentials and especially get them to come back to the mid-major level. I think being the person she is and wanting to be at home, those things help."
Augustin takes over a program that finished 3-26 this past season. She understands the job that lies ahead of her, but has a plan to bring success back to the Pirates, bringing lessons from all of her experiences throughout basketball to form her head coaching style.
"We're going to commit to starting with ourselves, our competitive spirit and also recruiting at home," she said. "We're in the transfer portal, we're hitting the ground running and I like to do things quickly."
