Jamie Carey, a former UT basketball player from the 2002-2005 seasons, will be inducted into the 2023 Hall of Honor Class alongside 10 other former Longhorn student athletes on Sept. 15.
In 2003, Carey helped bring the Longhorns to the Final Four and the team’s first Big 12 Championship. Carey was a finalist for numerous awards, including the Nancy Lieberman National Point Guard of the Year, the Margaret Wade Trophy and the Naismith Award. In her senior season, she was an NCAA Woman of the Year nominee. On top of her athletic accomplishments, Carey received a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a master’s in sports management in 2006 from Texas.
Carey is a two-time All Big 12 selection and career record-holder for highest three-point field goal percentage of .418. She is also a member of Texas’ 1,000-point scoring club with 1,074 career points, placing her 43rd in program history. She ranks second all-time in minutes per game and had a free throw percentage of .801, ranking eighth of all-time.
These impressive numbers were created with Carey only playing in 96 games in her UT career.
Carey started out her collegiate basketball career in 1999 at Stanford and earned the Pac-10 Conference Freshman of the Year. However, multiple concussions left Carey on the sidelines for the next two seasons. After recovering from her injuries, Carey transferred to Texas and quickly found synergy with the team.
“I got a big part of my heart back when I walked back on the floor for the very first time, and I’ll forever be indebted to the University of Texas,” Carey said in a video interview in 2016.
Carey was taken by the Phoenix Mercury as the 31st overall pick in the 2005 WNBA Draft. She later played for the Connecticut Sun and made it as far as the WNBA Finals.
After the WNBA, Carey went on to coach high school women’s basketball teams. In 2016, Carey returned to her alma mater to be the assistant coach at Texas. By 2018, she was the associate head coach until her departure in 2020. During her time on the Texas staff, Carey helped develop current WNBA point guards Ariel Atkins and Sug Sutton and finished her Texas coaching career with a 95-37 record. She created a reputation as one of the top collegiate assistant coaches in the nation due to her experience and winning mentality.
“There’s no question she’s a winner,” Karen Aston, former Texas women’s basketball head coach, said in an interview. “All you have to do is look at her track record.”
Along with her success, Carey is so well known for her perseverance after overcoming her concussion injuries and creating her impressive stat sheet that Texas Athletics named an award after her. The Jamie Carey Comeback Award is given annually to a student athlete who has overcome adversity.
Carey’s induction into the 2023 Hall of Honor ceremony will take place on Sept. 15 at 7 p.m. in the LBJ Auditorium and Conference Center.
