A second-year WNBA participant has lately joined the ranks of a school teaching employees in the course of the league’s offseason.
In line with the Florida ladies’s basketball group, Atlanta Dream participant Rhyne Howard will be part of the Gators’ teaching employees as an assistant coach and director of participant personnel. Howard has familial ties to Florida as her mom, Rhvonja (R.J.) Avery performed for the college from 1987-91.
“If you actually give it some thought, all the things is full circle. My mother was a Gator herself, and I’ve been on this campus a number of occasions, however to truly be capable to put on the orange and blue, I do know it’s making her proud, I do know it’s making everybody who thought I used to be initially going to be a Florida Gator proud,” Howard stated in a written assertion. “I all the time knew in some unspecified time in the future that I’d have the connection again with this college and simply to be right here and to be cherished and to really feel how a lot of a household it’s already simply confirmed all that.”
Welcome to Gainesville, Rhyne!
Excited to announce the most recent addition to our Gator household🐊
🔗 https://t.co/jSEUSFyMI5 | #GoGators pic.twitter.com/SbWnN2Grma
— Kelly Rae Finley (@kraefin) October 9, 2023
Howard is barely out of school herself, having attended the College of Kentucky and graduated in 2022. She grew to become the primary and solely Kentucky participant in program historical past to be drafted first general by a WNBA group.
Whereas at Kentucky, she grew to become the basketball program’s high three-point shooter of all time and earned the SEC (Southeastern Convention) Participant of the 12 months two occasions (2020 and 2021). She was additionally chosen because the SEC Match MVP in 2022 and made the All-SEC First Staff in all 4 of her years (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022).
Kelly Rae Finley, head coach of the Florida Gators, stated, “It has all the time been essential to me that we encompass our student-athletes with individuals who will help equip them with the abilities essential to succeed as professionals on and off the courtroom … Rhyne is humble, aggressive, considerate, and pushed … She resides a lot of our student-athletes desires. Her data of the sport, mixed along with her means to show and join with them on and off the courtroom, will elevate our program.”
She had a profitable second yr within the WNBA. Though the Dream misplaced within the first spherical of the playoffs, she averaged 17.5 a sport.
Final yr, she was the primary rookie in league historical past to file 4 blocks and 4 three-pointers of their debut. As an All-Star participant, she additionally received the WNBA Kia Rookie of the 12 months and Related Press Rookie of the 12 months in her first yr within the league.
