Annette Watts
Annette Watts, with more than 20 years of coaching experience at both the high school and collegiate level, became the program’s 11th coach when she came onboard in May of 2010.
Watts spent the last nine years as the head coach at Davidson, where she was the winningest head coach in the program’s history, and led the Wildcats to five-straight winning seasons. She enters her first season in charge of the Gamecocks with an overall mark of 144-121. After nine seasons in the Southern Conference, she compiled 102 wins. Last season, the Wildcats posted a 14-15 overall mark and 12-8 within the league to finish fourth in the final standings.
Watts has served on a staff that has made the Women’s NCAA Division I Final Four, as well as coached a high school team to the state quarterfinals, and also led Davidson to its first-ever postseason appearance with a trip to the 2006-07 WNIT.
The East Tennessee-native was named the 2005 Southern Conference Coach of the Year by the league’s media, the first Davidson coach to earn SoCon Coach of the Year honors, after leading the Wildcats to a school-record 18 wins. Davidson also had a school-record 14 conference victories and earned the second seed in the SoCon Tournament, the highest seed ever for Davidson in its 13 trips to the league tourney that season.
In her first four years at the helm of the Wildcats program, Davidson’s record improved every season. After Davidson finished 9-19 in the 2000-01 season, Watts was brought in to turn the program around. As witnessed by her career record, the win totals increased from 10 in Watts’ first year to 18 by her fourth season.
Watts’ players have excelled off the court as well as she coached 26 players at Davidson that were named to the conference academic honor roll. While at the North Carolina-based school, Watts mentored eight All-SOCon players and seven players reached the 1,000-point career scoring mark in the Watts system. She had four newcomers during her time at DC that were named to the league’s All-Freshman Team and one player named the top freshman of the year.
Prior to arriving at Davidson, Watts spent two seasons as head coach at Jackson County Comprehensive High School in Jefferson, Ga. She guided that team to the 2001 state quarterfinals and compiled an overall record of 38-20 in two years as head coach of the Lady Panthers. Her success on the court at Jackson County earned her Coach of the Year honors from the Jackson Herald News.
Before her stint at Jackson, Watts spent two seasons as an assistant under Hall of Fame coach Kay Yow at N.C. State. While with the Wolfpack, she was responsible for scouting opposing teams and recruiting, as well as on-floor coaching. Watts helped lead the 1997-98 Wolfpack squad to its first Final Four appearance. During her two-year tenure in Raleigh, the Wolfpack went 42-19 and advanced to the NCAA Tournament both years.
As a collegiate athlete, Coach Watts spent four seasons at East Tennessee State University where she played guard for the Lady Bucs. She received a bachelor of science degree from ETSU in 1981. Watts continued her post-graduate work at East Tennessee State, earning a master’s degree in secondary math education in 1985.
After departing ETSU, Watts taught and coached basketball at Greeneville (Tenn.) High School for eight years. Active in the Greeneville community, she headed up the Lady Devil (YMCA) Basketball Camp for seven years.
Watts then moved south from Greeneville and served as head women’s coach and full-time teacher at Robert Wood Johnson Comprehensive High School in Gainesville, Ga., where she compiled a career mark of 125-51. She was named Gainesville Times Coach of the Year three times (1992, ’95 and ’96) and also served as director of the Lady Knight Basketball Camp from 1990-95.
In addition to her wealth of coaching experience, Watts was also selected to a three-year term as a member of the NCAA Regional Advisory Committee for Division I women’s basketball. She has also represented the SoCon as a member of the WBCA conference captains for three years. Watts is also is a member of the National Association of Collegiate Women’s Athletic Administrators
