A little more than a year since taking over as athletic director, Kennesaw State’s Vaughn Williams continued reshaping the Owls on Wednesday.
Williams introduced Nitra Perry as the new women’s basketball coach almost on the anniversary of the introduction of men’s coach Lewis Preston.
A few minutes after Perry concluded her news conference, the new digital video board in the KSU Convocation Center was tested for the second time in as many days. The 15-foot-tall by 30-foot-wide LED screen is part of a $1 million project to improve the arena. A 73-foot-long ribbon board has been added at the other end of the court.
In between those activities, Williams said that he is still plowing ahead with adding football and hopes to field a team as early as 2014, no later than 2015.
Before he fields a team he wants to complete three steps:
- Securing naming rights for KSU Stadium, formerly known as the KSU Soccer Complex. It will be the home of the football team.
- Once the naming rights are secured, Williams will go before the state Board of Regents to present the financial plan. He hopes to do this no later than October. The plan already includes a $100 increase per semester in students fees that have been approved by the university.
- If the regents approve the financial plan, he will move forward with hiring a coach.
“We are in good shape,” he said. “We want to be ready from a financial sense.”
The team will play on the FCS level and will use scholarships. To make that happen, Williams would like to have between $6-10 million in what he calls seed money, $5 million of which would be earmarked to cover operating costs.
But Wednesday was about basketball.
Perry spent the previous four years on the coaching staff at Toledo. A player and graduate of Mississippi State, she served as an administrative assistant for recruiting at Georgia Tech from 2004-06. She was an assistant at Mississippi State from 2006-08 before moving to Toledo.
She helped the Rockets reach the women’s NIT for three consecutive seasons, including winning the title last year.
Perry said she plans to take advantage of her ties to the area by thoroughly recruiting Cobb County and metro Atlanta. Her team will run an up-tempo offense and try to use defense to create scoring opportunities.
“My vision is to leave a legacy and start a tradition,” she said.
