Poppie Completes Women’s Basketball Coaching Staff
Chattanooga women’s basketball head coach Shawn Poppie has had to make a lot of decisions since he arrived. Today he announces his latest decision; his coaching staff for the 2022-23 season.
Jonathon Goldberg remains from the previous two coaching staffs and will be joined by Jayda Worthy of Radford and Katelyn Grisillo from Wingate.
Goldberg will enter his sixth season as an assistant and his ninth overall. He began with Hall of Fame head coach Jim Foster as a graduate student for two years. After receiving his master’s degree, Goldberg was hired as the Director of Student-Athlete Development for one season before Foster named him an assistant in his final year with the Mocs.
In his eight seasons on the bench, the Mocs won three straight Southern Conference regular season titles and added a fourth in 2019-20 while claiming three SoCon tournament crowns. UTC advanced to the NCAA Tournament three times, the WNIT twice and was ranked as high as 17th by the Associated Press.
Jon graduated from Emerson College, a small Division III school in Boston, MA, in the spring of 2014. He earned a B.S. in Communication Studies. While at Emerson, he played under Head Coach Jim O’Brien and Assistant Coaches Bill Curley, Jack Barrett, and Alfred “Rico” Cabral.
“I’m thrilled to keep Jon here on staff,” Poppie said. “There is no denying his work ethic and passion for developing young people on and off the court.
“Jon was part of our championship teams and knows what it takes. He is a perfect fit for the culture we plan to have inside or women’s basketball program.”
Jayda Worthy comes to UTC from Radford where she spent two seasons on the bench with head coach Mike McGuire. Prior to that, she was a graduate assistant at Valdosta State for two seasons. Her duties have included opponent scouting, recruiting, team travel and led all player development for post players.
She was a student-athlete under the direction of Coach McGuire from 2014 through 2018. She was the 2018 Big South Defensive Player of the Year, earned All-Conference honors and was named to the league’s All-Freshman Team. She was recently named to the Big South Women’s Basketball All-Decade Team and was a VaSID All-State selection.
While she was a member of the team at Radford, she helped the Highlanders to the 2016-17 Big South Regular Season championship as well as several WNIT appearances.
Worthy graduated from Radford in May 2018 with a degree in Criminal Justice and a minor in sociology. She obtained her Master of Education in High Education Leadership in May 2020.
“I am super excited to welcome Jayda to our women’s basketball staff,” Poppie said. “She is a rising star in this business. She brings experience as a player and coach that will directly relate to our players in their development on and off the floor.
“I’ve coached against her when she was a player and coached against her from the opposite sidelines. I now cannot wait to coach alongside her.”
The final piece to the puzzle for Poppie was Katelyn Grisillo from Wingate where she spent the last five seasons with the NCAA Division II, three as the number one assistant and her first two as a graduate assistant.
In her time with the Bulldogs, she helped Wingate to three consecutive NCAA Tournament bids and the 2017 SAC Tournament title. She assisted with all aspects of coaching, such as recruiting and scouting, with an emphasis on post players.
In her five seasons, Wingate had multiple student-athletes named to the All-SAC Teams as well as the 2017-18 SAC Co-Player of the Year, 2018-19 Freshman of the Year.
Grisillo graduated from USC Aiken in 2016 with a degree in communications and minor in business administration. She played in 45 games for the Pacers over two seasons and made 22 starts at the point. She began her collegiate career at Presbyterian where she played in 26 games and shot 42.9 percent.
“I am ecstatic about the addition of Katelyn to our staff,” Poppie said. “She has made a huge impact at arguably one of the best Division II programs in the country. When putting together this staff I wanted good people who worked hard and have great relationships with others. Katelyn checks all of these boxes and then some.”
