Devonna Williams

Mattapan native Devonna Williams was recently named an assistant on the University of Massachusetts at Lowell (UML) River Hawks women’s basketball coaching staff. Williams, who brings 13 years of coaching experience and six years as a head coach, replaces former assistant Dennis Masi, who was recently named to the Fairfield University staff.

“Devonna will work very well with our post players,” said Head Coach Kathy O’Neil, who will open her 23rd year at UML. “She has a great personality and is very passionate about basketball. She has been around the game a long time and is a very good addition to our staff.”

Williams joins the River Hawks after serving as director of athletics at Roxbury Community College during the 2006-07 academic year. She has previously served as head coach at the State University of New York at Potsdam and Pennsylvania’s Dickinson College, and has held assistant posts at Emmanuel College, the University of Pennsylvania, Springfield College and Salem State College.

“I am extremely excited to work at UMass Lowell because I’ve known Kathy for a long time, and it’s great to have an opportunity to work with her,” Williams said. “This program has done very well through the years and I think we are going to have a very good team this year. I’m very excited to be here.”

Williams, who now resides in Woburn, earned her undergraduate degree in business management from Emmanuel in 1992 and stands as one of the best players in the school’s history. A second-team All-American as a senior, she ranks 10th on Emmanuel’s all-time scoring list and was inducted into the college’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1996. Her college career followed an impressive career at Boston Latin School, where she was a three-time Dual County League all-star and was inducted into that school’s hall of fame in 1998.