One word has followed Tammi Reiss throughout every stage of her career: builder.
From a standout college athlete at Virginia to the new Gators women’s basketball head coach, Reiss has kept the same poise throughout.
Her journey started around 45 years ago when the Eldred, New York, native was in sixth grade. Geno Auriemma, Virginia women’s basketball assistant coach at the time, sent her an offer letter to Cathy Rush Basketball Camp. There, Reiss got a glimpse of what college and professional basketball were like.
Fast forward to the late ‘80s, and UVA recruited Reiss. At that time, the school was on the fringe of the top 10 and had never won an ACC championship or even appeared in the Final Four.
In her time playing for the Cavaliers, she went to three Final Fours, even advancing to play for a championship in 1991.
Reiss was not the only one on the team who went on to take her place at the helm of an SEC program. University of South Carolina women’s basketball head coach Dawn Staley recalls fond memories from playing alongside Reiss at UVA, highlighting how they could compete anywhere.
“We were both cut from the same cloth,” Staley said. “We built a chemistry that was unmatched for four years.”
Following graduating from UVA, Reiss’ dad wanted her to go play overseas. Instead, she began dabbling in an acting career by attending drama school in New York. After starring in a few commercials, Virginia called her back, and then she became an assistant coach.
However, the experience wasn't the same the few seasons she was there.
“I wasn’t ready to be a coach, so I left after a couple of years,” Reiss said. “You were not going to talk me into doing anything, and if I wasn’t happy, I was going to move on.”
As soon as the WNBA was launched in 1997, Reiss jumped on the opportunity, playing for the Utah Starzz for one season.
She was an assistant coach for the Starzz from 2001-02 while running a nightclub. Following the team’s move to San Antonio, Reiss was fired midway through the 2002-03 season due to a 6-16 start. After taking a break from coaching and focusing on running the Manhattan Nightclub in Salt Lake City, Utah, for 10 years, Beth Burns, former San Diego State head coach recruited Reiss to an assistant coach role with the team in 2011.
Reiss credited her time in the WNBA and work with the Utah Jazz organization for preparing her to be an assistant coach again.
“I got to watch who I thought at the time was the best [general manager] and leadership in the NBA,” Reiss said. “From a value standpoint, they could evaluate guys and get them to compete for championships where they didn’t have the salary cap all these other organizations had.”
She continued as an assistant coach at Cal State Fullerton from 2013 to 2015 and had the privilege of coaching some elite Syracuse teams from 2015 to 2019 and eventual WNBA players.
Reiss recruited Toronto Tempo guard Brittney Sykes back at Syracuse and she helped the team reach the national championship in 2016. She said it was the most talented team she’s ever coached.
“They were built different, they were dogs, they were New York, like grit and grime,” Reiss said. “They just willed themselves to the Final Four into the national championship game,”
Before she became Rhode Island’s head coach for seven years, people warned Reiss it wasn’t a good opportunity. But her building skills came to the rescue. This time, she searched outside the confines of the United States.
“I knew internationally is how we were going to build the program,” Reiss said. “I was going to bring an associate head coach with me, who was going to bring lots of international talent.”
At Rhode Island, Reiss won three Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year awards and led the Rams to their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1996.
There was more room for mistakes since Rhode Island isn’t a Power Four school, she said.
Ultimately, every obstacle in Reiss’ life prepared her to coach the Florida Gators.
Florida stood out because it aligned with her values and long-term vision, she said. Reiss credited her agent with helping identify schools and compared the vibe of Gainesville to Charlottesville, Virginia, the home of UVA.
With the added experience of owning a nightclub for 10 years, Reiss felt her business pedigree made her cut out for the challenges of leading an SEC program, especially with today’s NIL landscape.
“The nightclub is 10 times harder than running a women's basketball program,” Reiss said.
Even with all her achievements, the late college tournament losses and other failures taught her the most. With losing comes reevaluation and inspiration to come back stronger.
“I don't think I’d be where I am with the University of Florida and had any kind of success had I not embraced the losses and learned from them,” Reiss said.
Off the court, she also found many opportunities in acting through her time around the WNBA.
Reiss’ first role came as a guest star in a 1999 episode of “Sister Sister,” alongside former WNBA standouts Lisa Lesile and Rebecca Lobo.
In 2002, she played Vicki Sanchez in “Juwanna Mann.” There, she starred with a plethora of movie legends such as Vivica Fox, Tommy Davidson, Eddie Murphy and Miguel Nunez Jr.
Nunez Jr., who played the main character of Jamal Jefferies, said Reiss’ background as a basketball player and actress made her stand out on set.
“It’s good to work with people that already have that type of training, because they don’t come with all the excitement and trying to prove themselves that other actors do,” Nunez Jr. said. “She literally was actually better than a lot of the actors that were there.”
With “Juwanna Mann 2” in the works, Nunez Jr. said he is looking forward to working with Reiss again.
Former Utah Starzz head coach Candi Harvey also recognized Reiss’ skill set during both her playing and coaching careers.
“There’s no stone left unturned when it comes to doing her job," Harvey said. “There was nothing that you would ask Tammi that was beneath her.”
She is confident in Reiss’ first SEC opportunity mainly because of her recruiting expertise.
“Florida has the best of all worlds with that hire,” Harvey said.
Contact Colby Kistner at ckistner@alligator.org. Follow him on X @colbykistner22.
Colby is a sports journalism senior in his second semester with the Alligator covering golf. He has experience covering Buchholz and Santa Fe High School sports and also worked in UF's innovation center where he wrote and created radio content for WRUF. Furthermore, he is interning at Idaho Education News Center in Boise and is looking to minor in business. In his free time, he watches the Seattle Kraken and the NHL as a whole.
