KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Every young girl who picks up a basketball and falls in love with the game dreams of the kind weekend that DeLisha Milton-Jones is experiencing.
She flew into Knoxville Friday morning from Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she is serving as an assistant coach on the United States FIBA national 18-year-old team, and spent the day taking tours, doing media interviews and spending time with more than two dozen family members and a handful of Old Dominion officials and donors.
Following a full day of events on Saturday, the ODU women's basketball coach will be formally inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame at the Tennessee Theatre in downtown Knoxville, located a short distance from the Tennessee campus.
The Old Dominion women's basketball coach will join an elite club that includes former Lady Vols' coach Pat Summitt, former UConn and WNBA great and current broadcaster Rebecca Lobo, former Louisiana Tech All-American and LSU coach Kim Mulkey and Robin Roberts, the Good Morning America host who is a former women's basketball journalist.
She will also join four former ODU All-Americans in the hall – Inge Nissen, Nancy Lieberman, Ticha Penicheiro and Anne Donovan, and former head coach Marianne Stanley.
"I'm so proud and honored and feel so blessed to have this honor at this point in my career," she said.
"I have a real sense of excitement and some butterflies since I started working my acceptance speech. I've been kind of reminiscing on a lot of great moments. I'll be thanking a lot of people.
"Believe me, it's a beautiful experience to go through."
Niece Alex Gatlin, mother Beverly Milton and grandmother Ruth Richardson with Milton-Jones
Although she's just 47 years old, Milton-Jones has a sterling resume highlighted by 19 seasons of professional basketball.
Jones played for the University of Florida and was a Kodak All-American and SEC Player of the Year. Curiously, her final game for the Gators came against ODU, when the Lady Monarchs triumphed in an NCAA Tournament game.
She played for two seasons with the Portland Power of the American Basketball League before moving to the WNBA after the ABL folded. She was the fourth player taken in the WNBA draft and played two long stints with the Los Angeles Sparks while also playing for Washington, San Antonio and New York.
She was part of two WNBA championship teams, was selected three times to the WNBA All-Star team and was a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
After retiring, she went to Pepperdine for three seasons and quickly rebuilt a moribund program. She was an assistant the first season and head coach for two. In her final season Pepperdine won 22 games and earned a bid to the WNIT.
She was assistant coach at Syracuse a year before coming to ODU in 2019.
Along the way, there were many obstacles that she had to overcome. Each time she faced adversity, her family stepped in and gave her support.
When she was a child she nearly drowned – she wasn't breathing nor did she have a pulse when she was pulled out of a community pool. Her mother never left her side in the hospital and nursed her back to health.
A late comer to basketball, she nonetheless was a dominating talent in junior high, yet did not play, she said, because of "politics."
Milton-Jones shares a laugh with Michela Jones, daughter of former ODU Board of Visitors Rector Lisa Smith
Undaunted, she began to walk to her high school practices, a team in which her sister played. The coach invited her to work out with the team.
"She saw something in me," she said. "And I'm so thankful he did."
Not that she would have been allowed to quit.
"If it hadn't been for those moments of defeat, which I didn't allow to define me, I allowed it to fuel me, I would not be where I am," she said.
"My mother isn't like a lot of parents are today. There was a stick toitiveness as to how my Mom raised us. I stuck it out and I'm better for it today."
The ABL folded during the middle of the season, and Milton-Jones was in a Gainesville, Florida shopping mall, her hands full of clothes, when she got a phone call telling her the league had declared bankruptcy and that she would be getting no more paychecks.
"I went and put everything back on the racks," she said. She struggled to make ends meet until about six months later, when the WNBA held its annual draft.
"It was scary because I didn't know what was next for me."
When she came to coach at ODU, she did so during the midst of the pandemic. It was many months before she was able to meet many of her players face to face.
"There were some obstacles I faced in my career and my life," she said. "And I used those as moments not to define me but used it as fuel to push me beyond the scope of my present situation.
She will thank her mother, sister and so many other family members and friends at Saturday's banquet. And she will give a special thanks to her husband, Roland Jones, an ODU assistant coach.
Roland and DeLisha met when she played at Florida and he was a junior college recruit taking an on-campus visit. He flirted with her and she told him – "I've got a boyfriend."
Milton-Jones is hugged by ODU Executive Senior Associate Athletic Director Carolyn Crutchfield
She didn't really. She was just shy.
Years later, when she was playing for the Sparks, he wrote her a long letter reminding her of that meeting and telling her how much he thought of her and wanted to go out with her.
They've been a couple ever since.
"It's awesome when you can go on a journey like my life has been and and share it with someone you love," she said.
For years they were separated by distance as she would play in one city and Roland in another. That included the summers, when they both played in Europe.
Eventually, he began to follow her career by getting jobs wherever she was playing.
"Having him in my corner, pushing me when I may want to give up, holding me back when I may want to go too far and too hard, that really helped me," she said.
"It's been a living movie. We are Love and Basketball. We fell in love over this sport and we've stayed in love through this sport. He's been an individual who saw something in me a long time ago. It was my second year in WNBA, that's when we started getting serious.
"He said to me, 'Hey, you can have longevity but you're going to have to become more versatile. I didn't understand what the was saying because I thought I was there to just rebound and defend.
"He said, 'No, you need to work on your offensive game. You need to get a jump shot. Your teammates are going to get double teamed and need someone to throw the ball to and be able to depend on you to knock down shots.
"He told me, 'This is how the NBA guys do it. This is how they think. If you can change things in your game it's going to help you later on.'
"I listened we embarked on a journey together, and here I am, a hall of famer. And I have him to thank.
"Because he was the one in the gym shooting with me, putting up with my rants when I did not want to become a three-point shooter and when I did not want to handle the ball and I was frustrated because it didn't happen for me in the gym that day. I would be kicking the ball all over the gym, cussing at him, and he was just patient with me.
"He's my homie, my friend. He's everything for me.
So is her family, which came to Knoxville dressed in jerseys adorned in Florida colors and her number 8. They came with dozens of extras, which they plan distributing to ODU officials and donors who will gather with her Saturday night.
"I knew this was going to be a special thing," she said. "But until I got here, I had no idea how special it would be.
"I didn't know what to expect. My family, and my ODU family, are going to make it even more special."
Minium: ODU's DeLisha Milton-Jones Basking in the Glow of Women's Basketball Hall of Fame Induction
