Record at WSSU: 17-69 (Three Seasons) Career Record: 67-121 (Six Seasons)

Winston-Salem State University women's basketball head coach Dee Stokes will head into her fourth season. Under her leadership, the Lady Rams continued the storied legacy of Lady Rams basketball. Her leadership and tenacity will lead the way for Winston-Salem State women's basketball as the program enters a new era in its storied history. She is a great leader with a history of success and a wealth of coaching knowledge and experience.

Taking over a program that had seen some recent struggles at the NCAA Division II level and leading that team was not an easy task for Stokes, but it is a challenge that she has accepted and has carried forth. She took over a WSSU team that hadn't posted a winning season since the 2002-03 season and has not won more than 12 games in the three following seasons. During her career, Stokes has focused on recruiting quality student-athletes and leading the way to great academic strides. Under her guidance, the Lady Rams are consistently ranked in the top tier of WSSU athletic teams in grade point average (GPA). During her career at WSSU, Stokes' teams have finished with a 2.8-3.0 GPA in all but one semester.

Stokes took the reins of the Lady Rams women's basketball program on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 when Director of Athletics Chico Caldwell announced her hiring, replacing John Williams. Prior to taking the reins at Winston-Salem State University, Stokes spent the prior two seasons as an assistant coach under Bud Childers at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Though the team had its share of struggles in its first season, Stokes led the squad to a very successful season, completing season sweeps of three different NCAA Division I teams, including posting two wins each over Norfolk State, Savannah State, and Bethune-Cookman. The Lady Rams also posted a road win over MEAC runner-up Morgan State. The Lady Rams finished the 2006-07 season with an 8-21 record. The team's 75-64 overtime win over the Norfolk State Spartans marked the team's first win over the Lady Spartans since the 1989-90 season. She did not slow down at the end of the season, however, as Stokes hit the recruiting trail and brought in nine new players to her first full recruiting class of Winston-Salem State Lady Rams. With Stokes at the helm for the Lady Rams, the team has had the unique distinction of winning the final game of the season in three straight seasons, something that no team has done during that span. In fact, the only other teams in America that win their final games are the NCAA champions and the WNIT champions.

Prior to leading the Lady Rams program, Stokes spent time as an assistant coach at Winthrop University where she helped guide an Eagles program that had never had a winning season at the NCAA Division I level to 12-game improvement and winning the most games in a season in school history.

Stokes, who served as the head women's basketball coach at East Carolina University from 1998 through 2002, played college basketball at Wake Forest University for two seasons before transferring to UNC-Charlotte from where she graduated in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology. In December of 2004, Stokes earned her Master's of Public Administration from DeVry University.

Following her undergraduate graduation, Stokes entered the coaching profession and held assistant coaching positions at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, Murray State University, Texas A&M University, and the University of Nebraska until 1998 when she was hired at ECU. During her five years as an assistant coach, the schools at which she served made three NCAA tournament appearances, captured two conference tournament championships and one regular season title. Stokes helped to lead ECU to three consecutive winning seasons from 1998 to 2001 marking the first time in 14 years that feat had been accomplished. In 2001, she was selected to serve as an assistant coach for the USA Basketball Team that captured the gold medal at the World University Games in Beijing, China.

Stokes currently holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from UNC-Charlotte (1993), a Master's of Public Administration degree from DeVry University (2004), and is currently pursuing an Education Specialist Doctoral Degree from Liberty University.

THE DEE STOKES FILE
Coaching Experience
Winston-Salem State University, 2006-Present
Head Coach

Winthrop University, 2004-06
Assistant Coach

East Carolina, 1998-2002
Head Coach