The Western Michigan women’s basketball program and head coach Shane Clipfell have announced the hiring of Akilah Sims to the position of assistant coach.
Sims joins the Bronco coaching staff after spending the last two seasons as the girl’s head basketball coach at Snider High School in Fort Wayne, Ind. At Snider she posted a 33-12 record and coached the Panthers to a Sectional Title this past season. Sims also spent two seasons as an assistant coach at Purdue Fort Wayne, helping the team post the highest GPA among any Mastodons athletics programs, at .59 during the 2019 Fall Semester. With PFW she coached De’Jour Young, helping her reach 1,000 career points, as well as elite shot-blocker Sh’Toya Sanders
“We are fired up about the addition of Akilah Sims to our coaching staff,” said Clipfell. “She had incredible success at Snider as the head coach and we have been very fortunate with Snider High School grads in the past! We like the fact that she has run her own program and better understands a lot of the qualities that are very important to being a great assistant.”
“Her overseas playing experience is something that our players can lean on down the road and she will add a great deal to our recruiting connections across this region as well as internationally. She was a fierce competitor in both high school and college and our players will benefit from her tutelage immediately. “
Sims played at IUPUI, graduating with a degree in kinesiology in 2016. She is 16th all-time in scoring the Jaguars’ history with 1,102 points and was named Second Team All-Summit League in 2014-15. She went on to play professionally in the Finnish Korisliiga Women’s League with Peli-Karhut, leading the team to a league championship in 2018.
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