An inside look at what coach Jimenez has planned

By Chelsea Underwood |Sports Editor|

Renee Jimenez takes charge over the women’s basketball program in her first season as head women’s basketball coach at CSUSB.

Jimenez comes from a winning women’s basketball program at California State Monetary Bay.

In the past five years, Jimenez and her staff have taken pride in themselves for building up and earning three trips to the NCAA tournament along with a 100 percent graduation from the participating athletes. Determine to build and strengthen the Coyotes, according to Jimenez, it all starts with the small things; from having good grades, working as a team, and taking advantage of what the school has to offer.

Academics is what Jimenez’s program takes most pride in and pursues to keep that going even if it means to cancel practice or a planned work out.

“We are really hard on our kids in terms of school comes first and we don’t stay later at practice if we have class, we leave early to go to class,” said Jimenez.

“We never compromise their academics for athletics. It’s not worth it.”

Looking out for her players when it comes to inside the classroom, she takes the time to make sure that her players are where they need to be.

Now when it comes to the court, Jimenez brings a little something to this program and surprisingly it has nothing to do with basketball.

“Our biggest goals just in practice has been to be a great teammate,” said Jimenez.

“They have to tuck their shirts in, no matter how tired they are, they have to clap or have to talk to each other.”

Jimenez stresses the importance of team building, “a lot of it is learning to how stay together as a team when they’re tired and can’t do anything else or they can’t do one more set or one more sprint they learn how to pick each other up. There is a lot of little things that we have brought with us that we’re pretty discipline in that sense.”

The importance of being able to be a great teammate are the building blocks for a firm foundation that can be built up in time.

Jimenez likes to see CSUSB as a “Sleeping Giant” that is bountiful with resources and faculties that she is ready to take hold.

Some of which is the Coussoulis Arena and the local high schools that are great for potential recruits.

With so much to offer and many goals to achieve, Jimenez is taking her time to not only build a solid basketball program but show the potentials of student athletes through hard work on the court and in the classroom.