Rodney Hamilton is in his first season on the Northwestern State basketball staff as the Demons associate head coach.
Hamilton served under Penny Hardaway at Memphis as the program’s director of basketball operations for the past four seasons, this past season Hamilton was moved up by Hardaway to take on full time assistant coaching duties. With Hamilton on staff, Memphis delivered four 20-plus win seasons with a 2021 NIT National Invitational Tournament Championship title and a 2022 NCAA Tournament win against Boise State and a near upset of No. 1 seed Gonzaga.
Hamilton was instrumental in helping the Tigers land their second No. 1 recruiting class in the nation in past three years in program history. Highlighting that class were two 2022 NBA Draft picks -- No. 13 overall pick Jalen Duren and the 45th pick Josh Minott. That group came two years after Memphis produced the first top-ranked class in school history with first-round NBA Draft picks James Wiseman (No. 2, Golden State) and and Precious Achiuwa (No. 20, Miami).
Hamilton coached as an assistant for six seasons at Tennessee State from 2012-2018, where he was involved in recruiting, player development, scouting and academic assistance.
The Tigers produced three winning seasons and another .500 record, including a 20-win campaign and NIT berth in 2016.
Under Hamilton’s tutelage, Christian Mekowulo won the Ohio Valley Conference Defensive Player of the Year in 2018 after Tahjere McCall was the two-time OVC Defensive Player of the Year in 2016 and 2017.
The defensive success followed Hamilton's work with Patrick Miller, who led the Ohio Valley Conference set TSU's single-season assist mark with 195 in 2012-13.
Hamilton's Tennessee State career also allowed him to coach NBA veteran and current Los Angeles Clipper Robert Covington, the lone HBCU alum on an NBA roster.
Ahead of joining Tennessee state, Hamilton spent three seasons as the head women's basketball coach at Indiana Tech, taking a team that won one game two seasons before his arrival to three consecutive double-digit win season, including a 16-15 mark in 2010-11.
Hamilton's Division I coaching career began at Southeast Missouri State, where he spent three seasons, following a two-season run at Crichton College in which Crichton reached the NAIA Elite Eight in 2007.
Hamilton began his coaching career with a four-year run as the head coach at Westside High School in Memphis.
A former Georgia State standout, Hamilton earned All-ASUN first-team honors twice and was the first Panther to have his uniform retired. He was inducted into the inaugural GSU Athletics Hall of Fame class in 2016.
Hamilton played professionally overseas in Sweden, Switzerland and Hungary.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in management from Georgia State in 1998 and a master’s in education from Christian Brothers in 2003.
He and his wife Tamara are parents to daughters Bailey, Brooke and Bella.
