Teresa Phillips

Teresa Lawrence Phillips (born 1958) was the athletic director at Tennessee State University, a post she had held since 2001. She was one of the few female athletic directors at a school that sponsors football. She was also the head women's basketball coach at TSU and Fisk University, and led the Tiger men for one game in 2003—becoming the first woman to coach a Division I men's basketball team.

Career

A Chattanooga native, Phillips—then known as Teresa Lawrence—attended Vanderbilt University on an academic scholarship. She played center on the school's club women's basketball team. In her sophomore year, 1977–78, Vanderbilt upgraded women's basketball to intercollegiate status, with Phillips as a member—becoming Vanderbilt's first black female athlete.

Phillips started at center in her sophomore and junior years, but lost her starting spot when the Commodores started adding more scholarship players. Nonetheless, she was named Lady Commodore Athlete of the Year in 1980, and also won the Nashville Civitans' Sportsmanship Award in 1979 and 1980.

A woman coaching a men's basketball team In December 2002, men's basketball coach Nolan Richardson III got into a fight with assistant coach Hosea Lewis and brought a gun into the Gentry Center. Phillips suspended Richardson and named Lewis interim coach. Richardson resigned a few weeks later, and Phillips named Lewis interim coach for the rest of the season. In February 2003, TSU and Eastern Kentucky got into a fight-marred game that saw 19 players ejected. Conference rules required Lewis to sit out one game. Rather than force 26-year-old assistant Chris Graves, who only two years' coaching experience, to lead the team, Phillips named herself interim coach for the Tigers' game against Austin Peay.