Karen Blair Position: Assistant Coach Experience: 1st Year Education: B.A. SMU, 1999

Karen Blair enters her first season as an assistant coach for the UT Arlington women's basketball team.

Blair comes to UT Arlington from Colgate University where she spent two seasons as an assistant coach.

Prior to Colgate, the newly named assistant coach spent 10 seasons on the staff at Southern Methodist University where she was an assistant under head coach Rhonda Rompola.

Blair is a graduate of Southern Methodist University where she earned a degree in both Marketing and Organizational Business Behavior Policy. She was also a three-year starting point guard for the Mustangs basketball team and captain of the squad for the 1997-1999 seasons.

During her playing career with the Mustangs, Blair helped lead the team to three NCAA Tournament appearances and captured the Western Athletic Conference Championship during the 1998-99 season.

Blair began her coaching career in 1999 at her alma mater, SMU, to serve as an assistant. During her coaching tenure with the Mustangs the squad made two WNIT appearances and earned two NCAA bids, advancing to the second round of the NCAA Tournament during the 1999-00 season. The Mustangs also won two regular season conference championships as well as the Conference USA Tournament championship during the 2007-08 season.

Blair's duties while at Southern Methodist included working with the perimeter players, opponent scouting, national recruiting, camps, compliance liaison, coordinating alumni and community events and serving as the Academic Coordinator.

At Colgate, Blair's main duties included working as the guard coach and offensive coordinator as well as the recruiting coordinator.