JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) — After announcing plans to fire women’s basketball head coach Simon Harris for alleged Title IX violations, East Tennessee State University (ETSU) updated its athletics website to include an acting head coach.
The current acting head coach for the women’s basketball team is Jackie Alexander, who has been with the university’s basketball program since April 2021 after working as an assistant coach at Eastern Kentucky University.
EKU finished with the fourth-best single-season turnaround in NCAA Division 1 during the 2019-2020 season as Alexander led the recruiting coordination, on-court instruction and team travel and equipment.
She launched her career in college basketball as the video coordinator for the United States Air Force Academy in the Mountain West Conference during the 2017-2018 season.
The Brodhead, Kentucky native played one season at Army West Point during the 2010-2011 school year before transferring to the University of the Cumberlands, where she was a three-year letter-winner on the women’s basketball team. She was team captain her junior and senior years and also earned All-Mid South Conference selection twice and is a two-time NAIA Academic All-American.
She graduated from the Unversity of the Cumberlands in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in biology and double minors in Spanish and military science. Upon graduation, she actively served in the U.S. Army from 2014 to June 2017, reaching the rank of captain. She served at Fort Campbell in Kentucky and deployed to Iraq in 2016.
