Shaw Joins Frog Women's Basketball Staff
7/21/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
July 21, 2010
FORT WORTH - Ebony Shaw, a former four-year letterwinner for the TCU women's basketball team, has been added to the Frog staff as Director of Operations, head coach Jeff Mittie announced Wednesday. Shaw replaces former teammate Sandora Irvin, who left to resume her professional playing career in the WNBA.
Duties in Shaw's new role on the TCU staff include handling team travel, academics, community outreach, compliance issues and other administrative responsibilities.
"We wanted to hire someone with a familiarity with Fort Worth and TCU, and Ebony certainly stands out in that regard," Mittie said. "After graduating from TCU, she has been very active in the Texas high school coaching scene, and that is something that helped make her an excellent candidate for this position.
"Ebony and I have had numerous discussions over the past few years about if she would be interested in returning to TCU if the opportunity ever arose, and the timing just happened to work out."
Shaw has spent the last four years as a high school teacher and head coach in the Fort Worth area, including the last two seasons at area power Dunbar High School. She led the Wildcats to a 57-14 overall record in her tenure with a pair of District 7-4A championships and state playoff appearances. Shaw was named district coach of the year this past season while leading the squad to a perfect 18-0 record in 7-4A play. Prior to her stint at Dunbar, Shaw spent the previous two seasons as head coach at Trimble Tech High School.
A product of Southwest High School in Fort Worth, Shaw experienced one of the most successful playing careers in TCU history from 2000 through 2004. She ranks tied for second in school history with 130 career games played and is seventh in starts with 87. She scored 1,156 points and at the time finished her career ranked No. 6 on the Frogs' all-time scoring list. Overall, she ranked among the top-10 players for 13 major career statistical categories by the time she stepped off the TCU court.
While Shaw was a steady offensive contributor during her career, it was her defensive prowess that made her even more valuable to the Frogs. She was named the team's Defensive Player of the Year each of her final three seasons and is the only three-time honoree in Mittie's Frog tenure.
Perhaps more impressive than Shaw's individual accomplishments was her help in ushering in the current era of unprecedented success experienced by the TCU program. Her four seasons on campus coincided with the team's first four NCAA Tournament appearances. The Frogs advanced to the second round each trip to the Big Dance. In addition to the postseason appearances, Shaw also helped TCU claim its first four conference titles in 2001 (WAC regular season and tournament), 2002 (Conference USA regular season) and 2003 (Conference USA tournament).
Shaw put together her top individual season for TCU as a senior in 2003-04, when she averaged doubles figures in scoring for the first time in her career at 11.0 points per game. She ranked second only to Irvin in scoring and was the only Frog to start each of the team's 32 contests. She posted a double-double in TCU's 70-57 win over Temple in the opening round of the 2004 NCAA Tournament with 15 points and 10 rebounds.
