Welcome Jamea

Jamea Jackson is smiling.

In every picture of her on goprincetontigers.com, she is grinning ear-to-ear. If you do a search for her and click on the images, she is basically smiling in all of them, even the ones where she is playing tennis.

Here. See for yourself:

Those pictures reminded TigerBlog a bit of Princeton alum Chris Young, who always had the same expression on his face in every picture of him as he threw a pitch in his 13-year Major League career. Young wasn't exactly smiling, but the look on his face never changed.

Jamea Jackson is the latest addition to the Princeton coaching staff, as she has been named the new head coach of women's tennis. She comes to Princeton after spending the last nine years as a coach with the USTA national program.

She is a former professional player herself, and she reached the second round of all four Grand Slam events in 2006. This is from the GPT release:

Before entering the coaching ranks, Jackson played full time on the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Tour from March 2003 until August 2009, and achieved a career-high ranking of No. 43 in 2006. Along with playing in all four Grand Slams, she represented the United States in Fed Cup Competition in 2006, and notched wins over Maria Sharapova, Marion Bartoli, Amy Frazier, Maria Kirilenko, and Jelena Jankovic, all former top-20 players. 

By the way, if you clicked on the link to read the release, you saw exactly what TB meant about how Jackson's smile.

Jamea Jackson isn't the only one in her family who has accomplished a great deal. 

Her father Ernest was an NFL cornerback with the Saints, Falcons and Lions in the 1970s after being the ACC Player of the Year in 1971 at Duke. As for her mother, Ruby, she is an author, having written the book "Flying High, Diary of a Flight Attendant," which is a fictionalized account of her 30 years in the profession. If you're interested, you can find that book HERE.

Perhaps TB and Ruby can compare writing styles at some point. That would be great. Her book got great reviews on Amazon.

As for Jamea, she turned to coaching after her professional career was over, working as an assistant at Oklahoma State from 2009-13. She also earned her bachelor's degree from OSU in 2014.

Jackson is the ninth coach of the Princeton women's tennis program, which was the first varsity sport for women, making its debut in April of 1971. Louise Gengler coached the team for 25 years, or basically half of its existence.

The coach that Jackson replaces is Laura Granville, whose 10-year tenure ranks only behind Gengler's in length. Granville won six Ivy League championships during her time at Princeton, and she brought the Tigers routinely into the national top 20.

TigerBlog is pretty sure that Jackson is following in the same footsteps as her predecessors in that none of them had previous college head coaching experience. This is definitely true of the first coach - Eve Kraft - and then Gengler and the three who followed her: Kathy Sell, Megan Bradley and Granville.

There were three other coaches in the 1970s about whom TB knows very little: Anne Marie Hicks, Carla Gaiser and Maree McCallum, but there is nothing to suggest that they were head coaches before taking over the Tiger program.

One prediction that TB will make is that Jackson does not finish her career with the highest winning percentage in program history. The best she could do is tie, since Kraft (26-0) and Hicks (5-0) never lost a match.

Of course, Jackson will be forgiven if she doesn't match that accomplishment. There is a great deal to be excited about from the record she brings to Princeton. 

She clearly knows what it means to be a great player, which she was in her own right, reaching a world ranking in the top 50 (43 to be exact). She knows what it means to identify talented young players and develop them, since that was her job at the USTA. 

She has coaching experience on the collegiate level with one of the powerhouse programs.

And she clearly values education, since she made it a point to finish her own college education once her professional playing career.

All of this was not lost on Ford Family Director of Athletics John Mack, who had this to say about her:

“I’m thrilled to welcome Jamea to the Princeton Athletics family. From our very first conversation, Jamea blew me away with her passion for helping young women develop as athletes, students and, most importantly, as people. Jamea will be a tremendous addition to our department and the University, and she will be a fantastic leader for our Women’s Tennis program.”

So welcome to Princeton, Jamea. 

TB looks forward to meeting you. And to reading your mother's book.