Megan Duffy and the Hokies announced the hiring of Sharnee Zoll-Norman as an assistant coach Thursday. She’s the first addition to Duffy’s coaching staff.
“I am thrilled to welcome Sharnee and her family to Hokie Nation,” Duffy said in a release. “She is a rising star in our profession. Sharnee will bring an incredible amount of knowledge to our players from her time in the WNBA and overseas. She will be a great mentor for our student-athletes. Sharnee has an energy about herself that will shine on the court, on the recruiting trail and in the Blacksburg community.”
Zoll-Norman comes to Virginia Tech from Penn State, where she was an assistant and the program’s recruiting coordinator under head coach Carolyn Kieger, who was Duffy’s predecessor at Marquette.
The Blackwood, N.J., native spent three years at Rhode Island as an assistant coach under former UVa All-American Tammi Reiss prior to her time in Happy Valley. She has five seasons of coaching experience at the D-I level after playing professionally for 14 seasons, three of which were in the WNBA.
“I have always dreamed of being back in the ACC competing against the best of the best,” Zoll-Norman said in the release. “I am beyond grateful to Virginia Tech athletics and to Coach Duffy for allowing that dream to come to fruition. Coach Duffy is a proven winner, phenomenal leader and an amazing human. My family and I are excited for the opportunity to be a part of the winning tradition with Hokie Nation.”
With the Nittany Lions, she worked with the backcourt and mentored All-American Makenna Marisa and Naismith Defensive Player of the Year Leilani Kapinus — the latter of whom is in the transfer portal. Those players averaged 13.4 and 11.5 points per game this season, respectively, as PSU went 22-13 and made the WBIT. Shay Ciezki, who Zoll-Norman advised, is also in the portal and averaged 11.5 points per game this year.
In Kingston, she helped turn a Rams program into a contender in the Atlantic 10. After finishing 11th in the league in 2019-20, her first season, they were third and second the next two years, respectively, and won 69 percent of their games. She coached eight All-A-10 selections, three of which were first-team honorees.
Zoll-Norman got into coaching at the AAU level with the Philadelphia Belles and worked with them for two seasons. She had an integral role in recruiting, player development, scouting and drawing up practice plans.
As a player, she was a legend at Virginia, where she recorded 1,169 points and a school-record 785 assists — she broke the previous mark set by Dawn Staley — which is the second-most all-time in ACC history. She’s the only woman in conference history to rack up 200 assists in three different seasons, which she accomplished in three consecutive campaigns from 2006-08.
She was also part of the United States U-18 and U-19 National Team that won gold at the 2005 U-19 World Championships in Tunisia.
Zoll-Norman entered the professional ranks in 2008, where she was selected as the 29th overall pick in the WNBA Draft by the Los Angeles Sparks. She also spent time in the WNBA with the Minnesota Lynx and Chicago Sky.
Like Duffy, Zoll-Norman spent time overseas (11 seasons) between Romania, Turkey and Poland. She was the 2018 EuroCup Guard of the Year and led InvestIn AZS Gorzow to the Polish League Championship in 2017.
Coaching History:
- 2022-24: Penn State (assistant/recruiting coordinator)
- 2019-22: Rhode Island (assistant)