Mississippi's Top Women's College Basketball Award To Be Named After Peggie Gillom

JACKSON, Miss. The Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame & Museum announced Wednesday the  expansion of the Cellular South Outstanding Player Award Series to include the best player in Mississippi women’s college basketball beginning in March 2008.  The award will bear the name of Abbeville, Miss., native Peggie Gillom, a 1998 Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame inductee and former college head coach who was also an Olympic and WNBA assistant coach following a nationally-prominent playing career at Ole Miss.

“I am very proud to have this honor,” said Gilllom, a former head coach at Texas A&M and current assistant coach at Ole Miss.  “It means so much to me.”

The award becomes a part of the Cellular South Outstanding Player Award Series and will be known officially as the Cellular South Gillom Trophy.  All women’s basketball players at all of Mississippi’s four-year college basketball programs are eligible regardless of school size, team record, position played or class standing.

“Mississippi has produced a wealth of talented athletes and women’s basketball is certainly no exception,” said Museum Board President Jim Keith.  “We are delighted to administer an award that bears Peggie’s name.”

The first annual Cellular South Gillom Trophy will be presented March 31, 2008.  The inaugural presentation will be in conjunction with the Cellular South Howell Trophy, which is awarded annually to the top men’s player in the state.  Media voters from across Mississippi will determine the finalists and eventual winners of both awards.

“This award could not be named after a more deserving person,” Ole Miss head coach Renee Ladner said.  “I think Peggie exemplifies everything this award stands for and, as a fellow Mississippian, I could not be more proud that the trophy will bear her name.”

Gillom is the only player the second player in Ole Miss history of either gender to score 2,000 points and grab 1,000 rebounds during her career.  She is a former head coach at Texas A&M and assistant coach with the TEAM USA Olympic team (2000).  She served as an assistant coach with the WNBA champion Houston Comets and is currently an assistant at Ole Miss.  Gillom is a member of the Board of Directors for the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tenn.  The Gillom Sports Center at Ole Miss is home to the women’s soccer, softball and volleyball teams.   

“We continue to appreciate the support of Cellular South, which is proving to be one of Mississippi’s top corporations in supporting athletics at the high school and collegiate level,” Ole Miss Athletics Director Pete Boone said.  “Not only are we excited for Peggie and her entire family, but we are also excited for our Ole Miss family.  Having the trophy honoring Mississippi’s top collegiate female basketball player named for a former Ole Miss student-athlete is a positive reflection on just how successful our women’s basketball program has become while competing nationally as a member of the Southeastern Conference.”

The University of Mississippi Athletics

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