PRAIRIE VIEW—Tai Dillard has made many stops along her basketball journey as a player and assistant coach, and along the way, she has taken something from the coaches she has worked for and encountered.
It started when she played for Jody Conradt at the University of Texas and continued with stops as an assistant coach at USC, Ole Miss, UTSA and most recently at the University of Houston. Dillard plans to pull from all of those experiences as she embarks on her first head coaching job at the helm of the Prairie View women’s basketball program.
“Playing for Jody Conradt, not only was she a great coach, but there were a lot of things I learned off court,” Dillard said to the Defender when asked about how all of her experiences shaped her for this opportunity with the Panthers. “She was big on etiquette. She introduced us to a lot of important people within Austin and around the country. Just navigating that realm of being influential in basketball.
“Working at UTSA with Coach Rae Blair, I really took away that she was very loving. She was the coach where there was always a dinner at her house. She always welcomed the families, the teens, or anyone to her house. That’s where I pulled in the motherly figure that a lot of players need.
“And at USC and Ole Miss, that’s when I really started my network of coaches because they were bigger conferences and I was able to branch out and meet a lot of different coaches that were going to help me in the recruiting world,” Dillard continued. “Then, of course, at UH that’s where I had my extended amount of time, and that’s where I was really able to hone what I would want to do as a head coach.”
Dillard brings a wealth of experience and accomplishments to PV, including a three-year stint in the WNBA with the San Antonio Silver Stars. She believes her vast background as an accomplished defensive player with a decent mid-range jumper and as a long-time assistant coach for some big programs will resonate with recruits and their families.
“Kids and especially parents do take that into account because they do really want to know, `My kid is being mentored by someone who has been there,’” Dillard said. “But the other biggest selling point is going to be that it’s more than about basketball, too.
“We will set our kids up with mentors outside of basketball who will help develop them into their careers and whatever hobbies they have.”
Prairie View’s Anton Goff sought Dillard’s background, outgoing personality and communications skills after parting ways with Sandy Pugh in March.
“Everything that Tai Dillard is,” Goff said when asked what he was looking for most in his next head women’s basketball coach. “Great communicator, great leader and someone who can rest on her accolades as a player, as coach, someone who can recruit. She has held every position from recruiting coordinator to director of operations, to associate head coach. She is someone who has been surrounded by successful people.”
It just so happened that the timing was perfect. Dillard was in the job market after UH coach Ronald Hughey resigned from his position with the Cougars.
Dillard had some decisions to make because her husband, Brandon Mouton, a former UT men’s basketball standout, has a job coaching high schools that he enjoys. Their two sons, Langston and Caden, are settled into their schools and have a strong core of friends. Dillard didn’t want to disrupt any of that.
Knowing that and starting to give in to the urge to finally step out on faith and pursue a head coaching position added to why the Prairie View opening made so much sense.
“I was like, I don’t want to disrupt that,” she said of making a family-first decision. “So this was just a blessing.”
It was also just time. Dillard had put in the work as an assistant coach at Big 12, SEC and Pac-12 programs. Then she participated in leadership-prep programs like the Basketball Coaches Academy and the NCAA Champions Forum, which had prepared her to take over a program. She felt it was time to answer her calling.
“Every year, everyone is like, `Tai, it’s time. You’ve been an assistant coach, it’s time,’” Dillard said. “And every year I was, ‘No.’ But the last couple of years I’ve had an opportunity to go to some forums at the NCAA office.
“The year before I went to the Basketball Coaches Academy, and last year I went to the NCAA Champions Forum facilitated by John Oliver and Craig Littlepage, and that’s where it really ignited a sense that `You can do this. Step out on faith that you can do this. So when the opportunity presents itself, you will be ready for it.’ The opportunity was here and I jumped on it.”
Now, she takes on the tall task of rebuilding the Panthers program to be competitive not just in the SWAC but also in line with Goff’s ultimate vision of having all of his programs be competitive across the entire mid-major landscape.
“I know the way the landscape of basketball is with the NIL and everything, but there are a lot of players who want to play because they want that shot, they want that opportunity to play,” Dillard said. “So really evaluating that and building up a support so that we can compete in that landscape of providing NIL and collectives and all that good stuff.
“My plan is to really develop a base where I can try to get people to support that initiative so that we can compete in that space.”
But with just five returning players from this past season’s team, Dillard and her staff will have their work cut out for them on the recruiting trail. She immediately tapped into her coaching connections and her experience as a recruiter to lure players from the transfer portal, high school and junior college ranks.
“When the job opened and I saw the roster, I was like, let me start putting together a list now,” she said. “What’s in the portal… I’ve been working since the season ended.”
Admittedly, Dillard says she is still adapting to being a head coach. Her assistant coach instincts aren’t so easy to just switch off.
“Head coaches always say you don’t know what it’s like until you’re in that first seat,” Dillard said. “I think right now I’m still a little bit in assistant coach mode as far as trying to recruit and finish scheduling. But I want to say that what I was able to do at UH, I had a lot of opportunities to make head-coach-type decisions. So I won’t be as young-minded in that aspect in my first year as a coach.
“But it’s not until your whole team is here and the game is on is when you know it’s your show.”
