Former Flyer starts ‘next chapter’ on Williams-Jeter’s staff at Dayton

“After 10 years overseas, it’s hard to just jump back in, but I called to congratulate (Williams-Jeter), and we talked for a bit,” MacKay said Thursday in an interview at the Cronin Center on campus. “She was like, ‘All I have is a GA (job), but we want you. I was like, ‘Done.’”

Dayton became a perennial NCAA tournament team during MacKay’s four years, making its first appearance in her freshman season in 2010. That was the first of five straight NCAA appearances during coach Jim Jabir’s tenure. The run culminated with an Elite Eight appearance in 2015.

After missing the tournament in 2016, Jabir’s final season, Dayton earned bids in four of coach Shauna Green’s six seasons. MacKay watched the recent success as a fan — often from afar.

“I didn’t start it,” MacKay said. “I was just fortunate to be in the group that crossed that barrier. I think Karah Cloxton, Nikki Oakland, Kendel Ross and Kristin Daugherty and all them started it. Kristen and Kendel got to feel some of that before they left. Kendel made a big statement as a freshman and said she was going to come here and take this team to the NCAA tournament, and she did. Those people before me set us up. I was fortunate to be a part of it. These kids nowadays don’t know what we went through and what we had compared to what they have. I think it’s good for them to understand where we come from. The tradition here, even the older alumni, they’re crazy about it. The Flyers are something special.”

Cloxton and Oakland played for Dayton from 2004-08. Cloxton ranks 12th in school history in assists (335). Oakland ranks 27th in school history in scoring (1,028 points).

Ross was a senior in 2010 when Dayton beat Texas Christian 67-66 in its first NCAA tournament game before losing 92-64 to Tennessee in the second round. She ranks 26th in school history with 1,063 points.

Kristin Daugherty Ronai, who was inducted into the UD’s Hall of Fame in 2020, was a part of the 2010 recruiting class like MacKay and ranks eighth in scoring (1,498).

MacKay’s name can be found all over the Dayton record book in the assist categories. She ranks 15th in career assists (314) and fifth in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.33). She ranked third on the team in scoring — behind sophomores Andrea Hoover and Ally Malott, who were inducted into UD’s Hall of Fame in March — with 10.5 points per game as a senior. That was a breakout year for MacKay. She earned a starting job for the first time.

“She’s our catalyst,” Jabir said then. “She sets everything up and has hit huge shots for us. There’s an argument for her being our MVP.”

MacKay has other claims to fame. She was the first UD player to sign with a WNBA team, the Seattle Storm, in 2013. The head coach of the Storm then was Brian Agler, who hired Williams-Jeter at Wittenberg in 2021. MacKay also was the only Dayton player from her era still playing professionally in 2022.

MacKay had a long journey in Europe after not making the Storm’s roster. She survived a team bus accident in Hungary in her first season, suffering three partially-fractured vertebrae in her neck, broken ribs and scrapes and bruises. The crash left two people dead.

MacKay returned to Hungary a year later to continue her pro career.

“It’s time to stand up,” MacKay told Dayton Daily News columnist Tom Archdeacon in 2014. “You get knocked down. You spend all this time in a neck brace and you can’t do anything about it. Eventually, though, you have to make the kind of choice that Jaime Potter (the former UD athletic trainer now at Cal State Fullerton) said best: ‘Rehab tells you a lot about yourself. You get asked that one question. Do I really want to go through all this pain to get back?’ “I decided I did and now I’m going back for a couple of reasons: No. 1, I’m going for myself. I want to prove to myself that I can play. And No. 2, I’m going back for the people who can’t go back. They will always be a part of who I am.”

After returning to Hungary, MacKay’s career continued in France and then Estonia. She played five years in Greece and spent time in Slovakia as well before finishing her career this spring in Portugal.

The extended time in Greece left MacKay with a second family she’ll be able to visit the rest of her life.

“Greece, people-wise, personality-wise, I loved it there,” she said.

MacKay, a 2009 Dublin Coffman graduate, split time between her parents in Columbus and Philadelphia in the offseasons. She knew this past season, spent with Sportiva in Portugal, would be her last on the court.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a couple years,” MacKay said. “Everyone always told me, ‘You’ll know when you know, and it gets to a point where you just don’t want to play. Until you feel that, don’t stop too early because once you stop, you’re done.’ I was just kind of trucking along the last couple years — one foot in, one foot out, trying to figure it out. But this year, it became very clear that I was done; I wanted to be home and start my life. The next chapter.”

The return to Dayton made sense in part because she had connections to the staff. She has known Williams-Jeter for a few years because she trained with Richard Jeter, Tamika’s husband, in the offseason in Columbus. She has known UD assistant coach Bryce Agler, who’s a year younger and from a nearby high school, Olentangy Orange, for about 15 years.

This was the perfect time for MacKay to start a coaching career that had long been a goal.

“I think I’ve always thought the game on a very high level,” MacKay said. “My IQ has always carried me through. It’s not like I’m the most athletic person in the world. I always enjoyed thinking the game and the strategy of it and how you can beat somebody and break them down. I think I always wanted to coach. Then my path ended up being a little bit different for the last nine or 10 years.”

Graduate assistants typically spend two years with a program before moving to their next job. MacKay is the first graduate assistant hired by Williams-Jeter, who took over the program in March when Green left for the head coaching job at Illinois.

“Sam embodies everything you would want you bring an alumna back to the program,” Williams-Jeter said in a press release. “She was a part of the team that got together and thought they could do something special and did. They went to the NCAA tournament four years in a row. She went on to have a phenomenal pro career, and now wants to come back and give back to the university and the program that she loves so dearly. Sam is coming back at a time that we need rejuvenation in the program. We aren’t returning a lot of experience and have a lot of new players and a new team, but the standards and expectations in this program haven’t changed. Sam understands that because she was part of it first. It gives a lot of our current team the ability to bounce things off someone who came in and rejuvenated this program a long time ago. We are excited to have Sam and she is a huge asset with the experience she has had overseas and the University of Dayton.”

MacKay’s job will be to do a little bit of everything for the program. She’ll work closely with Christina Bacon, the director of basketball operations. She’ll rebound for players in practice. With her professional basketball experience, she can help advise the older players on their post-college decisions.

MacKay jumped right in this month to help with kids camps on campus.

“It’s been neat to see some of the people that were here when I was here,” MacKay said. “Dayton’s a very special place. It’s big but small, and the family aspect of it isn’t just in women’s basketball. It’s in everything. I think that’s awesome. Essentially, I’m uprooting and changing my entire life after living overseas. My whole schedule, my whole life changes. To be able to do that somewhere that feels like home makes that transition a lot easier.”