Craig Douglass enters his second season as the head coach of the Flagler College women’s basketball program. The Lady Saints posted a 9-18 overall record and a 2-6 mark in the Florida Sun Conference. This was certainly a rebuilding year with just two returning players and eight freshmen.
Prior to Flagler, Douglass served for six years as the Development Officer for the Sutherland Sharks basketball club in Australia. He was in charge of the marketing and promotions of the club along with assisting in the coaching of the teams. He also coached in the semi-pro Australian CBA Women’s Basketball League with the Sydney Comets. Douglass was also employed for six years in the Olympic Development Program (OADP), as an Intense Training Center (ITC) coach. The ITC program is a national program where scholarships are awarded to elite basketball athletes 14-18 years of age. Douglass was a coach at the Australian Junior Men’s Camp in 1996 and in the same year, he also coached with the U-18 Australian Men’s Team where he was mentored by Australia’s Olympic Team coaches. His responsibilities were to work individually with elite athletes in Sydney, a city of four million people, as well as to coach at the live-in State ITC Camps (totaling 26-30 days of live-in camp per year).
Douglass has also been instrumental in assisting many athletes to make Australia’s professional league and receive athletic scholarships in the United States. Through his work in the ITC Program he has also had the opportunity to coach one of Australia’s best women’s basketball players, Lauren Jackson, who is currently playing for the WNBA’s Seattle Storm. He coached Jackson for a couple of development seasons before she attended the Australian Institute of Sport. “I didn’t make Lauren,” said Douglass. “She was an awesome Australian talent before I coached her in the ITC. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to help her a little along the pathway towards the AIS, the Australian team and eventually the WNBA.” Jackson was selected as the WNBA Rookie of the Year in 2001 and then named the league’s Most Valuable Player in 2003.
Douglass graduated in December of 1996 from the University of Western Sydney with degrees in sport management and marketing with a major in sport psychology. In 1995-96, he was also part of an exchange program where he worked as an assistant coach at Lafayette (Ind.) Jefferson High School. Douglass attended all varsity and junior varsity practices and lived with revered high school coach Jim Hammell who has won an IHSAA State Championship. Since that time, Douglass has brought Australian teams back to Indiana and Kentucky several times, coaching against some of the best high school programs in the area.
Douglass currently resides in St. Augustine.
