Jessica Clanton joined the men's basketball staff as director of operations in January, 2017.
A native of Midlothian, Va., Clanton oversees Longwood men's basketball's travel operations, academic monitoring, scouting, film preparation, practice logistics, statistical analysis and general quality control oversight of the entire program.
Clanton holds both a bachelor's degree in communications from Virginia Tech and a master's degree in sports industry management from Georgetown. She graduated from Virginia Tech in 2014, pairing her communications major with a business leadership minor, before moving on to her graduate work at Georgetown where she geared her studies toward business, operations and finance.
Prior to becoming a Lancer, Clanton gained significant experience at multiple levels of athletics, working in the high school, college and professional sectors since graduating from Virginia Tech. She was most recently an assistant varsity basketball coach at Manchester High School, her alma mater, where in addition to coaching she oversaw a large portion of the team's administrative responsibilities.
Before stepping back onto the sidelines at her alma mater, Clanton was a football operations assistant at the University of Richmond during the summer of 2016, working with the team's director of football operations to assist with daily operations of the Spider program. She helped run the Richmond football summer camp program and served as a liaison between the football staff and the athletics department.
Her time at Richmond was Clanton's second stint in a college athletics department after working in the Georgetown athletics marketing office while pursuing her master's degree. With the Hoyas, she was responsible for developing and implementing marketing and promotions for multiple Georgetown teams, specifically working with the men's and women's basketball programs' gameday events. She also managed staffing of various Georgetown athletics events and took the department's marketing efforts off-campus to engage fans and businesses in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.
Clanton also gained professional-level experience as a client services representative with the NFL's Washington Redskins in the lead-up to the 2016 season. From March through August, she was a point of contact with the franchise's premium season club holders, engaging those fans through phone calls, in-office visits and interactions at special events including Fan Forums, Rookie Chalk Talks and golf tournaments.
