Sara Carter Last College: South Alabama Position: Assistant Coach Email: sacarter@latech.edu

During her playing days at South Alabama, Sara Carter was known for her intensity, fundamentals and drive to excel.

Thus, it's no surprise that head coach Teresa Weatherspoon has Carter on her staff working with the Lady Techster guards. After all, Weatherspoon was a player in that same mold.

"Fire," Weatherspoon said. "If I use one word to describe Sara, it's firey. She is a great instructor. She is in charge of developing our guards, and they have a great understanding of what we expect from them because of the job she does. Everything offensively and defensively starts with the guard position, and so it's vital that we have someone with Sara's ability working with them."

Carter has served an instrumental in the Lady Techsters return to the top of the Western Athletic Conference and to the NCAA Tournament.

In each of her three years on the LA Tech staff, Carter has helped guide the Lady Techsters to the postseason, including back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances the past two seasons. Tech captured WAC regular season titles in 2008-09 and 2010-11 and the WAC Tournament title in 2009-10.

During her first three seasons at Louisiana Tech, Carter has worked closely with the Lady Techster guards, a group that has seen a vast improvement in assist to turnover ratio. This past season a pair of Tech guards earned all-conference honors as senior Tarkeisha Wysinger-Mackey was named first team and junior Jasmine Bendolph was named second team.

In addition to Carter's responsibilities with the Tech guards, she also oversees the players academic progress, serves as the liaison to academic coordinator Lisa Merritt, oversees scheduling, devises scouting reports and serves as the technology coordinator for the program, and assists in recruiting high school athletes in the southern region as well as all junior college recruiting.

Carter came to Tech after working three years on the women's basketball staff at Ole Miss. Carter was one of the key components to turning the South Alabama program into a contender during her playing days (2000-04). During her career, she was a two-time team captain and was named to the Sun Belt Conference preseason team prior to her senior season.

The Gulfport, Miss. Native was a four-time recipient of the Sun Belt Conference all-academic award and also won the Wilma Rudolph Award (2004) as the Outstanding Woman Athlete of the Year.

She earned her bachelor's in physical education from South Alabama in 2005 and her master's in health promotion from Ole Miss in 2007.