Congratulations to Olive-Harvey Coach Jeffery Dillard for being named NJCAA Region 4 Division I Women's Basketball Coach of the Year

Coach Dillard has led the Lady Panthers to a historic 2024-2025 season with a 32-1 record. 

Coach Dillard grew up on the Southeast Side of Chicago. Both his parents’ careers are in education. His mother is now a retired school teacher and his father is a professor at Olive-Harvey College. His sister is also a teacher.  Dillard attended Arthur Dixon Elementary School and Kenwood Academy High School where he fell in love with sports. He considers himself a very competitive person and enjoyed playing arena football.

Before becoming a successful coach, Dillard earned his Bachelors of Science in Administration from Florida A&M University. Today he is a full-time Accounting Instructor at Simeon Career Academy, where he’s also been coaching since 2012 —as well as serving as head coach of Olive-Harvey College’s Lady Panthers basketball team since 2023.   After working diligently to rebuild the Lady Panthers for the past two years, coach Dillard’s work has certainly paid-off as it’s been the most winning season for the college’s women’s basketball team in recent memory.

“When you get to the point where you want to be successful as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful. I’ve been telling the Panthers all season that they have a story to tell because of their talent and work ethic. I’ve seen it as we’ve played some really tough teams early on and then we went out of town to face even tougher competition—and we kept winning. I’m so proud of these young amazing people. I know this success is just the beginning of their path to lifelong success. Now this is the standard. I tell prospective players, you don’t have to go across the country to get a quality education and be in a quality basketball program.”

Follow the team on Instagram and read more about the season in Scoop Jackson’s story in the Chicago Sun-Times