Oct. 25, 2013
The Vanderbilt women’s basketball program has made several changes in recent days, including the hiring of Jon Erickson as the new Director of Basketball Operations and Kandice King as the new Strength and Conditioning coach.
JON ERICKSON
Since August 2010, Erickson served as the Director of Women’s Basketball Operations and Sports Information Assistant at Yale University, where he was the primary sports information contact for women’s basketball and baseball.
In his three seasons at Yale, Erickson was part of a staff that guided the Bulldogs to their first-ever WNIT appearance in 2011 and to a 16-win season for just the third time in their 40-year history in 2011-12.
As Director of Basketball Operations, Erickson was responsible for coordinating all areas of the women’s basketball team’s travel, including transportation, lodging, scheduling practice and shootaround times, and making arrangements for team meals. He also assisted in game preparation in the area of statistical analysis, and assisted in coordinating film exchange and all arrangements for visiting opponents during their visits to Yale University.
Erickson has more than 10 years of experience in the game of women’s basketball, including six years of working alongside the women’s basketball team at the University of Connecticut and 10 seasons with the WNBA.
During that time, Erickson has had the honor of working alongside Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame members Teresa Edwards and Geno Auriemma, Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Jennifer Gillom, as well as Olympic gold medalists Seimone Augustus and Diana Taurasi.
Since 2009, Erickson also served as a team statistician and game day public relations assistant for the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun. In this role, Erickson served as the team’s primary scorekeeper during all home games while working as a secondary media contact for the Sun’s media relations department.
Erickson first discovered his passion for women’s basketball as a member of the Varsity Pep Band at UConn during the Huskies’ 35-0 season in 1995, which ended with the school’s first-ever NCAA national championship in basketball.
KANDICE KING
King officially came on board with the Commodores in August. She has previously worked for the university as a consultant.
King graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1998. During her time in Knoxville, she worked at UT Medical Center in the nutrition department while majoring in nutrition.
After graduating, she transferred from the UT Medical Center to the Vanderbilt Medical Center, eventually becoming assistant direction of nutrition, food management.
She then worked in group fitness and personal training on the side, and started her own personal training business at Hillsboro Village. One of her clients was head coach Melanie Balcomb.
King said she is excited to be working with the Vanderbilt players, and said she enjoys “their youthfulness, their willingness and eagerness to be motivated to make changes for the better. (They are) very eager; (they) want to be better.”
