Report: Missouri State women’s coach Kellie Harper heading to Tennessee, her alma mater

Kellie Harper is riding Missouri State’s Sweet 16 run all the way home.

Hours after Tennessee fans celebrated the decision by men’s basketball coach Rick Barnes to spurn UCLA for a vacancy, the Vols will bring in their former point guard to replace Holly Warlick as the coach of the Lady Volunteers, according to ESPN.

Harper, who was then known as Kellie Jolly, was a star player at Tennessee under legendary coach Pat Summitt. She won three consecutive national championships for the Vols from 1996-98 before getting into coaching. She played alongside WNBA legends Chamique Holdsclaw and Tamika Catchings at UT.

Harper just finished her sixth season at MSU, where the Lady Bears, a No. 10 seed in the NCAA Tournament, upset DePaul and Iowa State before falling to Stanford in the Sweet 16. The run was Missouri State’s deepest in the NCAA Tournament since Jackie Stiles led the Bears to the Final Four in 2001. Stiles was an assistant coach for Harper this season who has battled cancer the past several years. Her future with the program is uncertain.

Before coaching at Missouri State, Harper, 41, was previously the head coach at North Carolina State and Western Carolina, getting her first head coaching job was she was just 27. She was an assistant coach at Auburn and Chattanooga before becoming a head coach. She hails from Sparta, Tenn., about two hours west of Knoxville.

A homecoming for Harper has been in the works for weeks as Tennessee requested permission to speak with her shortly after the Bears’ season ended. Harper replaces Warlick, a longtime UT assistant under Summitt who struggled to replicate the success of her legendary mentor after taking over in 2012. In seven years, Warlick led UT to three Elite Eight appearances but failed to get the Vols to a Final Four.

Harper will be just the third women’s coach in UT history, following Summitt and Warlick.

Harper was 118-79 in Springfield. Missouri State athletic director Kyles Moats is now tasked with his conducting his second coaching search in as many years after hiring Dana Ford in 2018 to replace Paul Lusk. Harper was making $246,460 annually while at Missouri State.

This story was originally published April 9, 2019 at 12:49 AM.