Nikki Newman enters her fourth season as an assistant coach for the Radford women’s basketball program after being hired on August 28, 2019.
At Radford, Newman is the recruiting coordinator, academic liaison, compliance liaison and is in charge of career development. In her first season, she helped guide the Highlanders to a 17-12 record and a 15-5 finish in conference play that included a second-place finish in the Big South standings. In her second season with the Highlanders she faced the many trials of coaching during a pandemic to help guide the team to a 9-9 finish in Big South play. During spring of 2021, Newman was selected as one of the Women's Basketball Coaches Association's 2021 Thirty Under 30.
Newman had an illustrious career with James Madison from 2009-14. She played in 147 games with 120 starts and tallied just under 4,000 minutes during her career. Newman was also a two-time Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Defensive Player of the Year (2012 & 2014) and the Scholar Athlete of the Year as a senior. She helped guide the Dukes to three CAA Tournament Championships, a WNIT Championship game, and three NCAA Tournament appearances all in 2010, 2011 and 2014.
Following her career as a Duke student-athlete, Newman served as the Assistant Director of Operations for the JMU women’s basketball team for the 2014-15 season. As the assistant she aided the Director of Operations with daily tasks such as organization of travel, distribution of money, sending recruit mail-outs, database entries and coordination of practice players.
Most recently Newman worked as the radio color analyst for James Madison women’s hoops since the 2015-16 season. She also helped as the television color analyst for the CAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.
Newman has been an elementary school teacher and worked numerous camps, including the James Madison Women’s Basketball Camp while playing at JMU.
The Harrisonburg, Va., native received her Master of Arts in Teaching in May 2014 after she earned her Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education in 2013, both from James Madison University.
“I am so thrilled that Nikki made the decision to join our coaching staff, McGuire said. “Nikki is special. I had the opportunity to coach her in travel ball and have always admired her approach to everything she does. She is a competitor, hard worker, a winner and is loyal. She had an exceptional playing career at JMU during one of the most successful stretches in their program history. Nikki is going to be a phenomenal role model for our ladies on and off the floor. I’m excited to help her grow as a collegiate coach.”
