KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – DeLisha Milton-Jones – the two-time Olympic gold medalist and current head coach of the Old Dominion women's basketball team – was announced as one of eight inductees into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2022, the hall announced on Monday night. Milton-Jones has helped write the history of the game with a decorated playing career at the collegiate, professional and international levels and has quickly become a rising star in the coaching ranks.
Milton-Jones was a four-year star at Florida, where she still ranks fourth in career scoring with 1,858 points. A 2007 member of the Florida Gator Hall of Fame, she received all-freshman honors from the SEC in 1994 and was voted first team all-conference in 1996. Her senior season was one for the record books. She averaged 18.6 points per game and led Florida in both blocks (48) and steals (87) en route to First Team All-American honors from the Women's Basketball Coaches Association, the Associated Press and Basketball Times. Milton-Jones was also named SEC Player of the Year in 1997 and received the Wade Trophy as the top player in women's college basketball. She led the Gators to the Elite Eight of the 1997 NCAA Tournament, where she lost an iconic game to the eventual national runner-up Monarchs, and was named Most Outstanding Player of the Mideast Regional.
The Portland Power picked Milton-Jones second overall in the 1997 American Basketball League. Just two years later, and after the dissolution of the ABL, she was picked fourth overall in the WNBA Draft by the Los Angeles Sparks. Her first stint in Los Angeles lasted five seasons, and she was an all-star in 2000 and a key contributor to the Sparks title-winning teams in 2001 and 2002. Her WNBA career spanned 17 years and 499 games, a record at the time of her retirement that has since been broken by fellow great Sue Bird. Milton-Jones would make another all-star team in 2007 and represented the U.S. Olympic Team in The Game at Radio City in 2004, an exhibition between the U.S. Olympic Team and a roster of WNBA stars that took the place of a traditional all-star game. In all, Milton-Jones played for Atlanta, New York, Washington and San Antonio, in addition to Los Angeles. Her 5,571 career points rank 16th in WNBA history. She also made stops in Spain, Italy, Turkey, South Korea, the Czech Republic and Russia to play professionally.
She was just as successful on the international stage, winning a pair of Olympic gold medals with Team USA in 2000 and 2008 and missed out on participating in the 2004 games due to injury.
Milton-Jones received an introduction to coaching in 2005, when she was appointed interim coach of the Los Angeles Stars of the semi-pro American Basketball Association midway through the season. At the time, Milton-Jones was just the second woman to coach a men's professional team. Her coaching career began in earnest in 2016, when she served as an assistant at Pepperdine. The next season, she took over the head coaching position in Malibu, and the program quickly rocketed. Her first season saw the Waves win 10 games, their most since 2012. The following year, Pepperdine had one of the best turnarounds in the country, going 22-10 and advancing to the Sweet 16 of the WNIT for the first postseason appearance in program history.
Milton-Jones took the reins at Old Dominion prior to the 2019-20 season and guided the Monarchs through turbulent times in her first season. ODU won seven of its last nine games that season and won three games in three days to reach the semifinals of the Conference USA Tournament as a shorthanded but determined No. 6 seed.
Old Dominion has carried over that momentum into 2021-22. The Monarchs currently own a 19-5 overall record and own victories over a pair of Power 5 opponents in Auburn and Texas Tech.
Milton-Jones will join five Old Dominion legends in the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame – Anne Donovan, Nancy Lieberman, Inge Nissen, Ticha Penicheiro and Marianne Stanley. She is the 13th active Division I women's basketball coach in the hall of fame, joining Geno Auriemma (UConn), Gary Blair (Texas A&M), Doug Bruno (DePaul), Cynthia Cooper-Dyke (Texas Southern), Kamie Ethridge (Washington State), Nancy Fahey (Illinois), Rick Insell (Middle Tennessee), Kim Mulkey (LSU), Dawn Staley (South Carolina), C. Vivian Stringer (Rutgers), Tina Thompson (Virginia) and Tara VanDerveer (Stanford).
Joining Milton-Jones in the Class of 2022 are Debbie Antonelli (Contributor), Alice "Cookie" Barron (Veteran Player), Doug Bruno (Coach), Becky Hammon (Player), Paul Sanderford (Coach), Bob Schneider (Coach) and Penny Taylor (International Player).
The 2022 Induction will mark the 23rd Class of Inductees to be honored by the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, which held its grand opening and inaugural induction in 1999. The Class of 2022 will be inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, receiving their coveted Eastman Trophy and Baron Championship Induction Ring, on June 11, 2022, in Knoxville, Tennessee. Tickets for the ceremony are on sale now. For more information regarding tickets click here.
The Women's Basketball Hall of Fame Board of Directors serves as the selection committee in determining which individuals will be inducted each year and which groups will be honored as "Trailblazers of the Game." Voting is based on minimum candidate requirements, which include record of performance, national or international recognition and contributions to the game of women's basketball.
For more information on the 2022 Women's Basketball Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony Weekend and to purchase tickets, please visit www.wbhof.com.
Milton-Jones Selected to Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame
