On the latest episode of Hawk Talk, Kelly Thompson, the Head Coach of the Roger Williams Women's Basketball team joined the podcast. She sat down with host Bryce Johnson and they discussed her coaching philosophy, her time coaching under Division-II coaching legend Trisha Brown at Stonehill College and her first job delivering newspapers.

https://rwuhawktalk.podbean.com/e/hawk-talk-episode-20-kelly-thompson/

https://youtu.be/zIqKg8pru2c



Thompson is in her 11^th season coaching in Bristol. In her time coaching the Hawks, she has guided the women's basketball program to new heights. Roger Williams has posted ten consecutive winning seasons with Thompson at the helm and she is the first and only RWU women's basketball coach to reach the 100-win milestone. Over a six-year stretch from 2012-13 through 2017-18, Thompson led the Hawks to 17 or more wins in each campaign including a pair of 20-win seasons and the only two NCAA Tournament appearances in program history.
 
In just her fourth season leading the Hawks in 2013-14, Thompson led the team to their best season to that point in program history going 22-7 on the season, finishing as conference runner-up in the Commonwealth Coast Conference Championship and earning an at-large seeding in the NCAA Tournament. For her efforts she was recognized as CCC Co-Coach of the Year as well as the Cox Sports Rhode Island Women's Basketball Coach of the Year.
 
In 2017-18, Thompson and the Hawks reset the program record for wins in a season finishing 23-6 including a program best 13 consecutive wins. That season, Roger Williams achieved its highest regional ranking ever peaking as the #5 team in New England. In addition, they finished as conference runner-up in the CCC Championship and earned another at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament.
 
Prior to her tenure in Bristol, Thompson made coaching stops as a head coach at Russell Sage College and as an assistant at Division-II Stonehill College and Maine Maritime Academy. She is a 2002 graduate of Springfield College where she was a two-time team captain, was named NEWMAC Player of the Year and was an Honorable Mention All-American in 2001.