| ||||||||||||||
L'Tona Lamonte is back for her fifth season on the Lady Catamount bench beside head coach Kellie Harper. In addition to assisting with scouting reports like all of the WCU assistant coaches, Lamonte works primarily with the Lady Cat guards, including 2005 SoCon all-tournament team and 2005-06 preseason All-conference selection, Chevon Keith. Lamonte also works closely with Jon Harper on game tape trade, too.
Lamonte came to Cullowhee after spending three years as the assistant varsity and head junior varsity basketball coach at Lexington High School where she additionally taught physical education and coached the school's cross country and softball teams. Her basketball team advanced to the state tournament twice in three years, including this past year when Lamonte was named Lexington's 2004 Coach of the Year. Lamonte also spent time coaching at Carver High School where she coached two players who went on to sign with collegiate teams. Camille Little will be a sophomore at North Carolina in the fall and Porsche' Jones will be a sophomore at Wake Forest University for the 2004-05 season.
Prior to her stint at Lexington, Lamonte worked at IMG-Muhleman Marketing during the summer of 2001 where she assisted in research, public relations and account management for NASCAR accounts and event planning. She was then called to be an assistant coach at Georgia Southern University under head coach Rusty Cram from 1999-2001. While at GSU, Lamonte helped coach the Eagles to a regular-season Southern Conference championship in 2001. As an assistant coach, she was responsible for overseeing the academic progress for the student-athletes, film exchange, assisting in coordinating camps as well as serving as the co-coordinator for community relations and publicity for the program.
Before her time at Georgia Southern, Lamonte worked at the University of Tennessee in 1998 aiding the Assistant Athletic Director of Business and Tickets with gameday sales for volleyball, soccer and basketball. She also assisted in the support work for the budget and ticket operations.
Lamonte earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Sport Management from Winston-Salem State University where she started her career as a two sport athlete. Due to injury, she chose to focus on softball while at WSSU. Lamonte was named to the CIAA All-Conference second team in 1999, also receiving her team's Hustle Award that year. In 1998, the junior led the nation in stolen basses among NCAA Division II players. Lamonte went on to earn her Master of Science degree in Kinesiology from Georgia Southern in 2003.
Lamonte is married to Donald Lamonte and the two have one daughter, Tyler.
