Jamelle Elliott worked her last day as one of UConn women’s basketball’s assistant coaches last week. In the two times she’s been back to campus since, she found it difficult to enter the Werth Champions Center, the team’s practice facility. She doesn’t expect that to change anytime soon, either.
“Every time I walk back in this door right now, I'm overcome with emotion,” Elliott said on Wednesday. “I'm really sad when I'm here right now.”
That’s not to say she’s unhappy about her career change, though. Last Thursday, the Huskies announced that Elliott would leave the program to “pursue opportunities outside coaching.” Specifically, she’s launching a leadership consultant business and hopes to teach others all she learned during her time as a player, coach and administrator.
“When I walk out these doors, I'm really excited about my future and what that holds,” she said. “A lot of what comes next is because of what I've learned here and all the people that have poured into me since the day I arrived here at 18 years old.”
Elliott acknowledged she could’ve “stayed here forever and been comfortable and been happy and enjoyed every day that I walked into this building.” But she couldn’t shake a feeling that she was being drawn to something new.
“It's not like I've decided to walk away now. It was just something that was pulling me somewhere else right now,” she said. “When something's in your spirit and making you feel like you want to impact in a different way, you have to feel, you have to listen to yourself.”
Elliott’s decision to leave is rooted in the way she returned to UConn’s staff. After a nine-year stint as Cincinnati’s head coach, she came back to her alma mater as an associate athletic director to launch the National C Club, a student-athlete alumni organization.
But midway through the 2019-20 season, the Huskies lost an assistant when Jasmine Lister unexpectedly left the program. Geno Auriemma asked Elliott to fill the void and she obliged.
“When I came back, I did it because he asked me to. That's the relationship I have with him: Anything he asks me to do, I'm going to consider it,” Elliott said. “It was a need at that time. I was right next door doing some administrative stuff, so it was a really easy transition.”
She spent the remainder of that first campaign as an interim, then ultimately became a permanent assistant coach during the offseason. Aside from helping her old program out, Elliott also wanted to raise another banner.
“My goal when I told him that I was coming back was: I would love to see you win another national championship,” she said.
UConn returned to the top of the mountain in 2025 and captured its 12th national title. After the dust settled following that season, Elliott considered leaving but ultimately stayed on. Once the 2025-26 campaign concluded, “I just felt like it was time,” she said.
Elliott made it clear her decision had nothing to do with Auriemma’s outburst at the end of the Huskies’ Final Four loss to South Carolina, shutting down online speculation. Instead, she’s eager to begin a new chapter as a “leadership performance teammate,” as she put it.
“I'm going to be doing some coaching and advising and impacting in a different way,” Elliott explained. “I'm hoping to carry the same lessons and values and characteristics that I've learned as a player, as a person, and impact in a different space — but hopefully doing the same thing. Doing it genuinely and authentically, and doing it with the things I've learned about winning seven national championships here, but also the lessons I've learned in my time at the University of Cincinnati, and the time that I served as an administrator.”
This past week, Elliott launched her website — JamelleElliott.com. She doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all approach for her venture. Instead, Elliott hopes potential clients will “engage in any way that they see a need to have me come in,” such as speaking, advising or running leadership academies.
While she plans to go wherever the work takes her, she did make sure to get in touch with UConn’s ticket office to ensure she can come to games whenever she wants.
“If I'm around anywhere, I'm going to be at some games,” Elliott said. “If I don't use them, it’s a lot of friends and family around here that's used to getting UConn women's basketball tickets. So I figured I'll buy some season tickets, and if I don't use them, I'll be able to still give them to the people that I gave them to during my time here.”
As difficult as it was for Elliott to decide to leave the program where she’s spent the majority of her adult life, telling the team proved to be just as hard.
“It was really emotional, obviously,” she said. “I'm going to miss them. I think the impact is going to be tremendous when it's basketball season for me, but hopefully I'll be so busy with my new adventure and venture that I'll be able to support and come to some games, but it won't impact me as much.”
Elliott didn’t shut down the possibility of returning to coaching one day, though she made it clear she’s putting everything she has into her new mission.
“Right now, I am on fire about the Jamelle Elliott Collective and the things that I think I can do moving forward to impact so many more people,” she said.
Elliott isn’t just leaving UConn twisting in the wind. Even though the Huskies came up short of going back-to-back and winning a 13th national championship this past season despite entering the Final Four with an undefeated record, she’s confident the program’s success will continue without her.
“I wouldn't have never left here if I didn't feel like the future was bright,” Elliott said. “That wouldn't have felt good in my heart to even consider leaving a situation if I didn't think there's a lot more national championships in us with the players that we have… I have no worries in the world that we’re going to be okay.”
