Jordan Edwards didn’t waste any time hitting the ground running after she was hired last June as an assistant coach for the women’s basketball team at Princeton.

“Summer is the big evaluation period, and there is a lot of recruiting that goes into it,” said Edwards, a standout player at Gateway who helped the Gators win the WPIAL Class 5A championship as a senior in 2018.

“With the Ivy League, you don’t have summer workouts, so we’re a little bit more fortunate to be able to focus on the recruiting during the summer. I started at the end of June, and I was on the road that first week at a tournament, and I kept on going into July on the road at tournaments in Ohio and Kentucky. It definitely was a curve ball for me.

“It also was a little nostalgic as I got to see some of my former (Western PA) Bruins coaches. It was a full-circle moment. Playing with the Bruins, we were at these same tournaments. To be back in those environments but with a coaching perspective, it was really surreal for me.”

Edwards said there was a lot to learn in the opening weeks and months of her time with Princeton, but she said, she has settled into her role, especially now that she is well into the 2024-25 season with the Tigers.

The journey to Princeton began with a trip to the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association convention during the NCAA Women’s Final Four in March of 2023 after her final season as a player at High Point.

“I did a program called, ‘So You Want To Be a Coach?’ and after that, I made a couple of connections,” Edwards said.

“I was ultimately hired as an assistant and (Director of Basketball Operations) at High Point. I took that year to absorb everything I could from the coaching role being around a staff that I knew and players who I knew. That was nice. But at the same time, I wanted to make sure I was doing my best to stay connected in the coaching world and learn from other coaches, too.”

Edwards also joined a mentor-mentee group, and she was paired up with Princeton head coach Carla Berube.

During the season, we would get on calls and chat about struggles we might have been having on our respective teams and also things that were going good,” Edwards said.

“We talked as much as we could with such busy seasons going on. We stayed connected through the end of last season, and it just so happened she had a position on her staff open up. I was able to enter the interview process with other candidates at that point.”

Edwards said she is grateful for the opportunity to grow as a coach in the Princeton program and learn from Berube who guided the Tigers to three NCAA tournament appearances and four Ivy League championships in her first five seasons with the program.

Berube also is known for her time as a player at UConn where she helped the Huskies to a 132-8 record in her four years there.

“She is amazing,” Edwards said. “She knows the game of basketball from playing under Geno (Auriemma) at UConn and an amazing run as a coach at Tufts (University). Transitioning to Princeton, she is that same person. Wherever she has gone, she’s made that program better. She’s an amazing person to learn from.

“She is defensive minded which I love so much. That is my biggest thing. I’ve learned a ton from her, the philosophies and the culture that she’s developed. I appreciate what she’s done with giving me the opportunity to find my voice within the program.”

Edwards said one of her favorite parts of working with the Princeton team members has been getting to know each one as strong players on the court and also strong young women.

“That is a big reason as to why I am doing this,” she said. “I want to make a positive impact in their lives. To know them on the court is obviously most of the job, coaching them up to be the best they can be. But learning about them off the court and their personalities, the different hobbies and interests they have, what they are studying, and all about their families; all of those things have been so interesting and rewarding. They are such a great group to be around.”

Princeton is making its mark with a month to go in the regular season. The Tigers were 13-5 overall and 4-1 in Ivy League play heading to conference games at Yale and Brown last Friday and Saturday, respectively.

“This group of girls will run through a wall for each other,” Edwards said. “We lost probably our best player at the start of the season to an ACL injury, so to see them band together with that next-man-up mentality and play for one another, that has contributed greatly to our success so far. We are a young team, but with our record, you probably wouldn’t think that.”

Edwards captained the Gateway girls basketball team for three seasons. In the Gators’ run to the 2018 WPIAL title, she averaged 12.3 points, 2.3 assists and 2.7 steals a game.

Edwards also was a three-time all-conference first-team selection.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)