PENSACOLA, Fla. – University of West Florida women's basketball assistant coach Jessie Ivey has been invited to attend the 2015 Center for Coaching Excellence program in Atlanta later this month. In addition to the CCE program, Ivey was also one of just 20 college coaches who participated in the Marine Corps Recruiting Command Coaches workshop in late May. 
 
"I feel honored to be selected to the Center for Coaching Excellence program for Assistants, and I am very grateful for the opportunity," Ivey said. "These leadership workshops give us the opportunity to network and gain knowledge from the very best in the business."
 
The CCE program is put on by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association, and is an elite leadership training program that provides a learning experience specifically for coaches of women's basketball. The program is made up of seven intensive training sessions in developing leaders, using self-reflection and analysis, and using each coach's personality type to specifically tailor a leadership style best suited for them, all over the course of two days.
 
While the session Ivey will attend is the first that is specifically geared toward assistant coaches, several successful head coaches at all levels of NCAA women's basketball have attended the CCE program. A few include Women's Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Muffet McGraw from Notre Dame, Amanda Butler of the University of Florida, and current UWF head coach Stephanie Lawrence Yelton, who attended the seminar for head coaches earlier this year.
 
"It's always a positive for a basketball program when the assistant coaches are invested, and they take pride in their job and their responsibilities," Yelton said. "Part of that is continuing to grow in the profession and learning new things. So I'm excited that Jessie gets involved in things like these, wants to go to seminars, wants to learn and grow in the profession, because ultimately it's going to help us."
 
Earlier this summer, Ivey spent four days in Quantico, Virginia, working with officer instructors and key leaders in the Marine Corps. Twenty college coaches from around the country participated in the Marine Corps Recruiting Command Coaches workshop in late May, where coaches learned how Marines are trained and saw different aspects of the Marine Corps that they could take back to their teams at home.
 
During the week, coaches made decisions similar to the kind a lieutenant might make while at The Basic School, a course that teaches Marine Officers basic combat fundamentals. After training in the field, the group would discuss what being a true leader means and how to make decisions in highly chaotic situations.
 
"We tell our players that the offseason is for making 'me' better so that 'we' can be better during the season," Ivey said. "It is the same for our staff."
 
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