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Greg Williams boasts a wealth of coaching experience, having worked extensively at both the professional and collegiate levels of women's basketball. He has dedicated the past 29 years to the coaching profession and most recently was the Head Coach of the WNBA Detroit Shock for the 2001 and 2002 seasons. With the Shock, Williams oversaw Detroit's basketball staff, its roster development and all player acquisitions while also coaching the team on the floor. Williams served as the team's lead assistant coach during the team's first two WNBA campaigns. He helped lead the team to a 17-13 inaugural season record -- the highest winning percentage by an expansion team in the history of the four major sports (NBA/WNBA, NFL, MLB, NHL) -- and a 1999 WNBA playoff berth. Williams is the first person to head coach in three different women's professional basketball leagues and dons two women's professional championship rings. Williams worked as an assistant coach for the WNBA's Utah Starzz in the league's inaugural 1997 season and has been associated with two other women's professional basketball leagues aside from the WNBA. He guided the Women's American Basketball Association's (WABA) Dallas Diamonds to the 1984 league championship and also coached the Diamonds when they were a member of the Women's Professional Basketball League (WBL) during the 1980-81 season. He inherited a last place Diamonds squad during his first year and promptly led them to the 1981 league finals. Williams was also assistant coach of the WBL's Houston Angels for two seasons (1979-80) and helped lead them to their first-ever women's basketball professional championship in 1979. At the collegiate level, Williams served as head coach at Colorado State University from 1990-97, posting an overall record of 108-88. His 1995-96 squad posted the best season in CSU history to date, reaching the second round of the NCAA Tournament, while posting a 26-5 record and earning him Western Athletic Conference Coach of the Year honors. He landed his first collegiate head coaching job with the women's basketball program at the University of Houston in 1985 after volunteering with the women's basketball program at Southern Methodist University for two years. In five seasons at Houston, Williams posted a 93-51 record including a berth in the 1988 NCAA Tournament, the program's first-ever appearance. His five-year .646 winning percentage at Houston remains the highest percentage by any coach in the history of the program. Williams, who began his coaching career as an assistant in men's basketball at Rice University, is a four-time coach of the year in the women's game. He received that recognition at Houston in the Women's Professional Basketball League, at Dallas in the Women's American Basketball Association, at Houston in the Southwest Conference and at Colorado State in the Western Athletic Conference. He left Colorado State to become an assistant for Utah in the WNBA before joining the Shock in 1998. For his career, Williams has posted an overall record of 201-139 as a collegiate head coach, 58-43 as a professional head coach, and 259-182 combined. Williams received a Bachelor of Science degree in Physical Education in 1970 from Rice University. While playing at Rice, Williams was named Southwest Conference Player of the Year in 1969. A native of Portland, Indiana, Williams is married to his wife Suzanne. |
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