NIKKI NEWMAN • ASSISTANT COACH / RECRUITING COORDINATOR • SECOND YEAR AT RADFORD • JAMES MADISON, ‘14 Nikki Newman enters her second season as an assistant coach for the Radford women’s basketball program after being hired on August 28, 2019. 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 JMU 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 mailouts, database entries and coordination of practice players.
Previously, Newman worked as the radio color analyst for James Madison women’s hoops beginning in 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’s of arts in teaching in May 2014 after she earned her bachelor’s of science in elementary education in 2013, both from James Madison University. At Radford, Newman is be the scouting coordinator, position coach, in addition to recruiting and academics.
jayda worthy • ASSISTANT COACH • FIRST YEAR AT RADFORD • RADFORD, ‘18 Jayda Worthy enters her first year as an assistant coach for Radford women’s basketball. Worthy comes to Radford from Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Ga., where she served as a graduate assistant since August 2018. Worthy has assisted in various recruiting efforts, scouting opponents, coordinated team travel, served as the academic liaison, and led all player development for the post players. As a student-athlete under the direction of Coach McGuire from 2014-18, Worthy accrued accolades like 2018 Defensive Player of the Year, First and Second Team All-Big South honors, Big South All-Freshman selection, VaSID All-State, and most recently named to the 2010-19 Big South Conference Women’s Basketball All-Decade Team. She aided Radford to a Big South Regular Season Championship in 2016-17 season, several WNIT appearances, in addition to being team captain back-to-back seasons in 2016-17 and 2017-18.
She is in the program’s record books a total of 17 times. Worthy is ranked in the top-10 across the single-season and career records, while holding the year-by-year title for points in 2017-18 as well as assists in 2015-16. During her time in Radford, she was very involved in the community serving as a volunteer with the Special Olympics, Micha’s Backpack, Our Daily Bread and numerous basketball camps. Worthy graduated from Radford University in May 2018 with a bachelor’s of science in criminal justice and minor in sociology. Most recently, she obtained her master of education in higher education leadership from Valdosta State University in May 2020.
2020-21 RADFORD WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
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