YEARS AS THE W HEAD COACH IN 2025-26: 2nd
Mississippi University for Women named veteran coach Eric Vaughn as its new women’s basketball head coach, beginning May 1, 2024. Vaughn - or "Coach EV" - came to The W with more than 30 years of coaching experience at all levels, for both women and men.
Vaughn made an immediate impact in Year One with hs frenetic, up-tempo style that had the Owls vying for a St. Louis Intercollegite Athletic Conference (SLIAC) post-season bid all the way to fhe final weekend of the regular season. MUW finished 8-17 overall (7-11 in SLIAC games). 2 Owls - Conley Langford and Calysia Phillips were second-team All-SLIAC honorees. 5 MUW players were SLIAC Academic All-Conference selections, as well.
Prior to joining The W Vaughn, most recently, served as an assistant coach for the Millsaps College women’s basketball team for the 2023-24 season. Prior to that, Vaughn served as the interim men’s head coach at Mississippi Delta Community College for one season (2022-23). He also had stints as an assistant for the Millsaps, Jackson State, and Indiana Tech University men’s basketball programs, as well as the first assistant for Mississippi Valley State women’s basketball (2021-22).
But to Vaughn, the game of basketball has been more than just a job; it has been a lifetime passion - a ministry - to him. In 1998 he founded the Blessed IJN Sports AAU program and Academy, also serving as its coach through 2008. He mentored the likes of NBA player Mason Plumlee and the late James Hardy (an NFL wide receiver) through the Blessed IJN program.
Vaughn also possesses a long list of prep coaching assignments during the early years of his storied career. Additionally, he has coached on the professional level as an assistant coach in the CBA and a head coach in the ABA and TRBL.
Raised in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Vaughn relocated to Saginaw, Michigan, during his high school years, where he was an all-state player for Saginaw Valley Lutheran H.S. Vaughn began his college career at Michigan Christian College (now Rochester University), where he led the school to a 1989 USCAA national championship. He was the tournament “MVP” and a first-team All-American, also entering the school’s Hall of Fame in 2022. He continued his college career at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in General Studies.
Vaughn and his wife, Francis, have five children: Jerald, Feryn (James), Mary, Eliana, and Eric Jr. He has two grandchildren Jerian (4) and Trey (2).
“Owls Nation can expect an exciting fast-paced brand of basketball that I refer to as ‘organized chaos’,” Vaughn says. “We are not trying to trick anyone, as we will play pressure defense along with pressure offense.”
Vaughn is the third coach in the modern era of women’s basketball at The W.
