PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (Oct. 17, 2022) – Jameshia Levister has been named head women’s and men’s golf coach at Prairie View A&M University.
Levister will take over the reins after the departure of Coach Michael Rice, who recently returned to his alma mater.
Levister has a passion and love for the game of golf that goes beyond measure. She has been an avid golfer since the age of 3. She played varsity basketball and varsity golf all four years at Belleview (Florida) High School, being named to the all-county golf team four times and Golfer of the Year in her junior and senior years.
After Belleview High School, she moved on to Lake City Community College as the captain of the women’s golf team. When the women’s team at LCCC was discontinued, she needed a new school to play golf. She got a call from the chancellor of NCCU in 2000 to come to play on the men’s golf team. In her first year at NCCU, she earned the NCCU Men’s Golf Team MVP award and was named CIAA Men’s Golf Rookie of the Year. She was the only female to play on the men’s team at any conference school during that time.
Levister kept playing golf at a high level after her time at NCCU ended. While living in Virginia, she won the 2004 Virginia Women’s Amateur tournament. She was the first African American to win a women’s state tournament in the history of the VSGA. That victory, alongside high finishes in several other tournaments, propelled her to become Virginia Women’s Golfer of the Year the same year.
In 2006, Levister turned professional and became a member of the Professional Golf Association. She became a teacher of the game and played tournaments on the professional level. In 2010, she joined the LPGA Futures Tour (now Symetra Tour). She spent three seasons touring the world, competing alongside the best female golfers in the world. On tour, she had multiple top-10 finishes and gained respect from some of the best golfers. She is still one of very few Black female golfers to play on that level.
Levister left the tour in 2014 after her father’s death but continued to teach and play golf. The same year, she won the Middle Atlantic PGA Women’s Championship and, just seven months later, won the MAPGA Senior-Junior tournament.
Levister was announced as the assistant golf coach at NCCU in the fall of 2020, filling a position established through a Tara VanDerveer Fund for the Advancement of Women in Coaching grant from the Women’s Sports Foundation.
After her stint at NCCU, Levister was named the Director of Golf at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, MO. She was the head coach for the Men’s and Women’s teams. She became the first African American female to lead both programs in MIAA history.
This story originally appeared on pvpanthers.com.
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