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Pauline Davis-Thompson                  Position: Assistant Coach Experience: 1st season

Pauline Davis-Thompson is in her first season as a full-time assistant coach on J.J. Clark's staff at Tennessee, working with the Lady Vol sprints/jumps/hurdles group. The elite level coach, who was an Olympic gold medalist for the Bahamas and an NCAA and Southeastern Conference champion at the University of Alabama during her collegiate career, spent the 2008 campaign serving as a volunteer coach at Rocky Top.

A year ago, the Big Orange demonstrated immediate success under Davis-Thompson's leadership, as Courtney Champion (indoor 200m) won the first SEC title of her career and six members of her group combined to earn 17 All-America certificates. Among that group Jeneba Tarmoh was named to the SEC Indoor and Outdoor All-Freshman Teams and was the league's Freshman Runner of the Year indoors.

Davis-Thompson joined the Lady Vol program after a stint as the founder and coach of PDT International Track Club, where she trained elite-level post-collegiate athletes. Additionally, she had served since 1989 as the district marketing manager of sports tourism for the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism in Atlanta, Ga.

Since founding PDT International Track Club in 2002, Davis-Thompson has been coaching world-class sprinters, such as two-time Olympic gold medalist Monique Hennagan of the U.S., Olympian Christine Amertil and Addis Huyler of the Bahamas and Pete-Gaye Dowdie of Jamaica.

In addition to her previously-mentioned duties, Davis-Thompson also has held two key track & field governance positions since 2003, underscoring the high regard accorded her from people in the sport. Globally, she has served as a women's committee member for the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), responsible for establishing policies and procedures for promoting women in track & field throughout the world. For her home country, she has filled a role as Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations (BAAA) international coordinator, serving as a liaison between the BAAA federation and overseas-based athletes.

The first Bahamian to win an individual Olympic medal on the oval, Davis-Thompson claimed silver in the 200 meters at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, finishing behind American Marion Jones. With Jones' admission of using performance-enhancing substances and the return of her gold medal, Davis-Thompson might one day trade her silver medal for a gold one to match the first-place award she won when she joined her countrywomen as the third leg in winning the 4x1 at that Olympiad.

The five-time Olympian and seven-time World Championships competitor retired after that career-topping effort in the 4x1 in 2000 but not before achieving status as a heroine in her country. Because of her performance with the Bahamian 4x100m relay team that earned a silver medal at the 1996 Olympiad in Atlanta, that group of young ladies became known as "The Golden Girls." They have been honored with a mural bearing their image that greets visitors at the Nassau International Airport, a postage stamp was issued in their honor, and, in 1998, the Governor-General of the Bahamas presented the Golden Girls with a silver Jubilee Award for their contributions to athletics.

The Bahamas' former national record-holder in the 400 meters, Davis-Thompson ran collegiately at Alabama, where she graduated in 1989 with a B.A. in communications and a minor in English. The Crimson Tide standout won the NCAA Indoor 200m dash in 1988 and took the NCAA Outdoor 400m crown in 1989, setting a collegiate record of 50.18 seconds.

On the SEC level, Davis-Thompson was a multiple champion, winning outdoor crowns in the 100m dash from 1986 to 1988 and in the 200m dash in 1986 and 1988, and claiming indoor titles in the 55m and 200m in 1988. UA also raced to SEC Outdoor 4x100m relay titles in 1986 and 1987 and hoisted the SEC Outdoor team trophy in 1986. In 2005, she was recognized in the SEC Greats Program, which was designed to honor those who helped establish the rich athletic tradition in the conference.

Davis-Thompson is married to Jamaican Olympian and Brown University graduate Mark Thompson. The two met at the 1992 Games and were wed in 1998.

• As a volunteer assistant in her first season at UT in 2008, she guided six members of the sprints/jumps/hurdles corps to a total of 17 All-America accolades
• Helped Courtney Champion win the 2008 SEC Indoor title in the 200m dash, the first conference crown of Champion's career and the first-ever SEC Indoor 200m win by a Lady Vol
• Founded PDT International Track Club in 2002 and has been coaching elite-level post collegiate athletes since that time
• Among her PDT pupils were Monique Hennagan of the U.S., Christine Amertil and Addis Huyler of The Bahamas, and Peta-Gaye Dowdie of Jamaica
• Hennagan won an Olympic gold medal as part of the U.S. 4x400m relay in 2004 and finished fourth individually in the 400 meters
• Improved Amertil from a 169th-place world ranking in 2001 to seventh place in the 400 meters at the 2004 Olympic Games
• Davis Thompson became the first Bahamian to win an individual Olympic medal, claiming silver in the 200 meters at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia
• Also ran on The Bahamas' gold-medal-winning 4x100m relay at that same Olympiad
• Ended her career in 2000 as a five-time Olympian and seven-time World Championships competitor
• Stands as the Bahamas' national record-holder in the 400m
• Ran collegiately at Alabama, where she won the NCAA Indoor 200m dash in 1988 and took the NCAA Outdoor title in the 400m in 1989, setting a collegiate record of 50.18 in the process
• Nine-time SEC champion, winning 100m dash titles from 1986-88, 200m dash crowns in 1986 and 1988, indoor 55m and 200m championships in 1988 and outdoor 4x100m relay trophies in 1986 and 1987