Austin Peay State University head women’s basketball coach Brittany Young announced the additions of David Lowery, Ieasia Walker, Anna Gomez, and Tiya Douglas to the Governors’ staff ahead of the 2024-25 season.
“Each of these new staff members bring in a ton of experience and will be great additions to our staff.” said Young. “They are hard workers who know the game and will push our players to their full potential. They will join our culture and make it better while giving new perspectives. We look forward to working with them and seeing how they make a positive impact on our program.”
David Lowery | Associate Head Coach
Lowery comes to Clarksville after spending the 2023-24 season as an assistant coach at Florida Atlantic. During his time in Boca Raton, Florida, Lowery oversaw the creation and implementation of practice sessions in all aspects of the game. He also coordinated scheduling and preparing game contracts while managing the team budget, logistics, and purchases. Lowery helped the Owls with recruiting by promoting the university, evaluating recruits, and attending camps and clinics.
Prior to his time in Boca Raton, Lowery spent the 2021-2023 seasons as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Mercer under Austin Peay Hall of Fame head coach, Susie Gardner. While in Macon, Georgia, Lowery planned and executed all aspects of recruiting from reviewing transcripts, marketing the university and program with graphics and mailouts, coordinating travel for coaches, and managing the recruiting budget while acting as a liaison for NIL, compliance, and international student-athletes. He also organized clinics and camps while planning team-building activities for the Bears.
Preceding his time with the Bears, Lowery spent January through August of 2021 as an assistant coach at Northwest Florida State College, where he taught strategies and techniques to improve game-day play as well as developed strength training and conditioning programs to help the team stay in shape in season.
Lowery spent July 2019 to December 2020 as the head coach of Florida State College. There, he delegated responsibilities to assistant coaches to make the coaching staff more effective while mentoring and helping them develop both personally and professionally.
From 2015-19, Lowery was an associate head coach and recruiting coordinator at North Florida, where he created strategies to obtain top athletes. He administered the team’s budget and coordinated travel plans and equipment purchases. While with the Ospreys, Lowery helped mentor student-athletes by helping them perform under pressure and overcome obstacles.
From 2007-2015, he was an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Florida, where he oversaw the recruiting and equipment budget while managing training and conditioning schedules to ensure the team ran smoothly.
Lowery spent the 2005-2007 seasons at UNC Charlotte as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator. During his time in Charlotte, he evaluated and recruited players from across the globe and counseled student-athletes in conflict resolution by working with athletes one-on-one.
Lowery began his coaching career at Davidson College where he was an assistant coach from 2001-2005. There, he worked with other coaches to learn new techniques to build a strong program and supervised player academic development.
In his career, Lowery has made four NCAA tournament appearances, five WNITs, and coached 30 All-Conference players across the SoCon, A-10, SEC, and Atlantic Sun. He has coached three ASUN Conference Newcomers of the Year and made two ASUN Semifinal appearances.
Ieasia Walker | Assistant Coach/Director of Sport Performance
Walker joins the Govs after being an assistant coach and strength and conditioning coach at Tuskegee. She served as a guard skills development coach planning practices, leading film sessions, conducting scouting reports, and coordinating game day activities. While working with women’s basketball, Walker organized travel itineraries and practices while also organizing student-athlete mental health check ins and academic checks. While with the Golden Tigers, Walker worked as the strength and conditioning coach for women’s basketball, volleyball, and tennis and organized workout sessions and guided student-athletes in the areas of nutrition, recovery, and injury prevention. In addition to her coaching, Walker managed social media for the women’s basketball program and the sports performance programs.
Prior to her time at Tuskegee, Walker was a strength and conditioning intern for Auburn where she planned and implemented team lifts for the Tigers cheer team and assisted coaching lifts for women’s basketball, gymnastics, volleyball, and swimming and diving. Before Auburn, she interned with strength and conditioning at Howard, where she assisted in football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, and volleyball training. There, she created movement video tutorials to promote proper form to student-athletes.
From 2016-2019, Walker worked for the NBA in the Referee Development Program where she collaborated and facilitated video analysis of personal, G-League, WNBA, and NBA officiated games. She also collected and presented data on play calling for the NBA and G league. In addition to this, Walker assisted NBA referees, replay managers and technicians at the NBA replay center to identify actual and potential replay situations in real-time. Walker is a certified official as she has refereed pro-ams, women’s college basketball, and boy and girls high school games.
Walker earned her degree in business management from South Carolina in 2013 where she was a student-athlete on the women’s basketball team under head coach Dawn Staley. During her time at South Carolina, Walker was named the 2012-13 SEC Defensive Player of the Year and a three-time All-SEC Selection. She is one of three Gamecocks to achieve 1,000 career points, 250 career assists, and 250 career steals. Walker went on to play professionally overseas as she competed in China, Spain, Sweden, and Puerto Rico from 2014-2016.
Anna Gomez | Director of Operations
Gomez joins the Governors’ staff after spending the 2023-24 season as a graduate assistant for Vanderbilt women’s basketball. While with the Commodores, Gomez assisted the coaching staff with all aspects of team operations such as practice and gameday coordination, recruiting planning, player development, film analysis, and equipment management. She also organized recruiting information, oversaw the student manager program, and was responsible for gameday bench and practice operations while recording game goals and performance metrics and assisting with individual player workouts.
From 2021-2023, Gomez was head student manager for the Commodores, acting as a liaison between student managers, graduate assistants, and Director of Operations and overseeing 10 student managers. Gomez coded games and practices using Hudl Sportscode and curated video playbooks for coaches and players by breaking down film and gathering the best clips.
Gomez began at Vanderbilt in 2019 as a student manager, where she set up practices, assisted coaches with drills, and recorded individual stats for players. As a student manager, she assisted the director of operations with merchandise selection and prepared the team’s equipment for home and away games. Gomez organized player’s schedules to help coaches plan workouts and practices and managed the scoreboard and clock during practices.
In the summer of 2022, Gomez was an Assistant Equipment Manager for the Seattle Storm, where she supported the Director of Operations in the 2022 WNBA season. While in Seattle, Gomez managed the equipment room by maintaining inventory, organizing team gear and supplies, and assisted in post-practice equipment breakdown. She ensured that all equipment for home and away games was prepared and facilitated the arrival of visiting teams to the Storm’s practice facility and main arena.
Gomez earned her Bachelor’s degree in Sociology in May 2023 and her Masters degree in Education in May 2024 both from Vanderbilt.
Tiya Douglas | Graduate Assistant
Douglas joins the staff after being a student-athlete for the Govs from 2022-24. The Fort Smith, Arkansas native played in 60 games across her two seasons under Coach Young, where she made 59 starts.
Douglas transferred to Austin Peay from Ole Miss – where she appeared in 44 games across two seasons – and led the Govs with 37 three-pointers during her first year in Clarksville during the 2022-23 season.
During her second season as a Gov, Douglas started 31-of-32 games, while averaging 27.8 minutes per game in her graduate student season.
Off the court, Douglas achieved a high level of success in the classroom, being named to the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District Team and earning Academic All-ASUN recognition for the 2023-24 season. Douglas also made the Dean’s list each of her four semesters at Austin Peay.
https://letsgopeay.com/news/2024/8/2/young-finalizes-womens-basketball-staff-for-2024-25.aspx
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