The 2015 recipient of the prestigious Jon Lotz Barnabas Award, Jayson Gee is in his fifth year at Longwood in 2017-18.
Gee is a 29-year coaching veteran who was named among the nation’s top 10 assistant coaches at Cleveland State by BleacherReport.com before his appointment as Longwood’s head coach on April 3, 2013.
With Division I stints as associate head coach at Cleveland State (2006-13), St. Bonaventure (2003-06) and Ohio (1993-96), an assistant coach post at Youngstown State (1989-93) and head coach experience at his alma mater, Division II University of Charleston (1996-2003), Gee has coached those teams to six NCAA Tournaments, including the 2009 postseason after helping lead Cleveland State past Butler in the Horizon League Championship.
In five seasons since taking the reins at Longwood, Gee has recruited and mentored the program’s first three All-Big South first and second-team selections and sent four players on to play professionally. Among those are All-Big South first team center Lotanna Nwogbo (2016), second team forward Khris Lane and second team guard Quincy Taylor (2014). Also with the All-Big South honorable mention award earned by former Lancer Tristan Carey in 2013, Longwood has received at least one All-Big South honor in all four years of Gee’s tenure.
Among Gee’s notable coaching accomplishments prior to Longwood is the recruitment and mentoring of two-time NBA Champion Norris Cole at Cleveland State. Gee signed Cole to the Cleveland State program and coached the 6-2, 175-pound point guard to Horizon League MVP honors in 2011 before the Chicago Bulls drafted him with the 28th overall pick of the 2011 draft. Cole has since gone on to earn two championship rings with the Miami Heat and is currently a member of the New Orleans Pelicans.
Gee has significant experience in rebuilding programs after reviving his alma mater, University of Charleston, as head coach and Cleveland State as associate head coach. At both stops, Gee inherited programs with consecutive losing seasons and turned them into conference champions and NCAA Tournament participants by his third year.
In his third season, Gee led the Lancers their highest Big South finish, bolstered by five conference wins including a 15-point upset over reigning Big South champion Coastal Carolina. The Lancers earned the No. 8 seed in the Big South Tournament – the program’s highest postseason seed in four years in the conference – and advanced to the Big South quarterfinals for the second straight year following a first-round win over No. 9 seed Charleston Southern.
Gee’s third year also saw the development of Nwogbo, who came to Longwood as part of Gee’s first recruiting class and became the program’s first All-Big South first team selection in 2015-16. Nwogbo led the Big South in rebounding and double-doubles and was among the league’s top 10 in scoring, field goal percentage and blocks.
Nwogbo was part of a vaunted senior class that Gee put together for 2015-16, which also included 2015 Big South All-Tournament Team selection Shaquille Johnson and the starting backcourt duo of Leron Fisher and Tra’Vaughn White.
Johnson’s two-year career as a Lancer culminated in the State Farm College Slam Dunk Championship, where he represented Longwood University on a national stage as one of eight participants in the nationally televised contest on ESPN.
In 2014-15, Gee’s second season at Longwood, Gee took a group of players that had spent just two seasons together and coached them to a postseason surge that included a quarterfinal upset of Big South No. 1 seed Charleston in Conway, S.C. Led by All-Big South second team selection Taylor and Johnson, the Lancers won three of their final four games, including two in the Big South tournament to advance to the league semifinal for the first time in program history.
Taylor, who transferred to Longwood from UAB prior to the 2013-14 season, blossomed under Gee in his final year of college basketball, leading the Lancers with 17.2 points per game and breaking the school record with a .480 (86-of-179) three-point shooting percentage. In three seasons at UAB, including a starting gig as a sophomore, Taylor averaged just 4.1 points and shot .340 (71-of-209) from three-point range.
The success in Gee’s second season followed his 2013-14 coaching debut in which the Lancers recorded the biggest win in the program’s Division I history when they defeated TCU 82-79 in Forth Worth, Texas.
During Gee’s time at Cleveland State, he helped the program to an overall record of 136-100, including four 20-win seasons and four postseason appearances. The Vikings won the 2009 Horizon League Tournament Championship and received an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament where they upset Wake Forest in the first round. Cleveland State won the Horizon League regular season in 2011 for one of three NIT berths, also accomplishing that feat in 2008 and 2012.
Gee spent three years at St. Bonaventure (2003-06), including two seasons as the associate head coach (2004-06). Prior to that, he was the head coach and assistant athletics director at his alma mater, the University of Charleston (W.Va.), leading the Division II program to a seven-year record of 160-55 that included six, 20-win campaigns, five West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WVIAC) Tournament Final appearances and four NCAA Tournament bids.
Gee was an associate head coach at Ohio University during 1995-96 after two years as an assistant coach from 1993-95, serving an important role in the development of Gary Trent, a first-round NBA draft pick of the Milwaukee Bucks, who played a combined nine seasons in Portland, Toronto, Dallas and Minnesota. The Bobcats won the 1994 Mid-American Conference Tournament Championship, advancing to the NCAA Tournament before winning the preseason NIT Tournament the following year.
Gee began his collegiate coaching career at Youngstown State University in Ohio, spending four years (1989-93) with the Penguins after becoming one of the youngest Division I assistant coaches in the country at age 23 in 1989.
Gee was one of 18 selected for the 2008 ACE (Achieving Coaching Excellence) Program in Indianapolis. Sponsored by the NCAA Black Coaches and Administrators Council, the ACE Program is committed to preparing minority collegiate coaches for success as future head coaches.
The Springfield, Ohio, native played four years at Charleston, helping the program to a record of 92-30, including 30-5 during his sophomore season. A two-year team captain, Gee finished his collegiate career at Charleston third in rebounds (844) and games played (122). He was inducted into the Charleston Athletics Hall of Fame in 2008, after previously being inducted into the Springfield South High School Hall of Fame in 2000.
Gee earned his Bachelor of Science in social science education from Charleston in 1988, and his Master of Science in sport science and administration from Ohio University in 2003.
Jayson and his wife, Lynette, have two sons, Brandon and Bryan, and a daughter, Briana.
