MOULTRIE – Vanessa Taylor is returning to Johnson C. Smith University as the head women’s basketball coach.
Taylor, a former outstanding Colquitt County basketball player and member of the Colquitt County Sports Hall of Fame, previously coached the Golden Bulls from 2001-2012.
“I couldn’t be more excited,” Taylor said on Friday. “I think it’s going to be a good fit.”
She said she was impressed with the positive energy she has found at the Charlotte, N.C., university.
“It is awesome to come back,” she said. “My heart is so full for this opportunity to return to a place I love.”
Taylor has won 331 games in 23 years as a head coach at three schools.
And she had considerable success during her first tenure at Johnson C. Smith, producing a record of 215-112.
The Golden Bulls made five NCAA Division II women’s basketball tournament appearances while she led the program.
In 2010-2011, the Lady Bulls went 26-5, the best record in school history and she was named the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association’s Coach of the Year.
Her teams won the CIAA tournament championship in 2009 and the CIAA Western Division title in 2006.
The Golden Bulls are coming off a 9-18 record in the 2024-2025 season, but Taylor said the team finished on a high note, winning two games in the inaugural Black College Invitational Championship held in late March at the Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte.
She is expecting six players to return from the 2024-2025 team and is out on the recruiting trail to augment the roster.
“We are looking to bring in the calibre of player that will allow us to compete in the CIAA,” she said.
Taylor was an assistant last season at Lander University in Greenwood, S.C., where she and new head coach Nicole Shelwick quickly turned the program around.
The Bearcats reached the Peach Belt Conference tournament semifinals and finished 14-13.
“Just to be part of that brought me great joy,” she said.
Taylor had been an assistant at Queens University in Charlotte the previous two seasons.
Before taking the job at Queens, Taylor spent five seasons at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, S.C., as the associate head coach.
During her stint at Coastal, she helped build the program into a Sun Belt Conference contender.
Before going to Coastal Carolina, Taylor was the head coach at North Carolina Central University from 2012-2017.
Taylor got her first head coaching job in 1994 at Elizabeth City State, where she remained until taking the job at Johnson C. Smith in 2001.
She was a two-time CIAA Coach of the Year while at Elizabeth City State.
Taylor is the daughter of Joe Van and Mattie Taylor, a girls basketball coach at William Bryant High in Moultrie, and also a member of the Colquitt County Sports Hall of Fame.
Vanessa was an outstanding player at Colquitt County High under coach Julian Grantham.
A left-handed shooting two-time All-Region first-team selection, she averaged 11 points a game as a junior and 16.3 as a senior.
Grantham, also a member of the Sports Hall of Fame, remembered her as a player who “could think on her feet and did not let pressure bother her.”
Taylor then went on to play four seasons for head coach Tiny Laster at Tuskegee and was the team’s captain as a senior.
While at Tuskegee, she earned a degree in psychology.
When Laster left to become the head coach at Hampton (Va.) University, he took Taylor along as an assistant and then helped her get her first head coaching opportunity at Elizabeth City State in 1994.
Taylor is married to Lonnie White, a longtime teaching tennis professional and member of the the American Tennis Association and Colquitt County Sports Halls of Fame.
Taylor said they both revere their roots in Colquitt County.
“It’s where it all started for both of us,” she said. “It has played a big part in who we are.”