Harvey named strength coach for women's hoops
Anthony Harvey
Another up-and-coming coach has joined Mississippi State women's basketball, with Anthony Harvey bringing his experience at the college and NBA levels to Vic Schaefer's staff as the Bulldogs' strength and conditioning coach.
In his role, Harvey will oversee the strength and conditioning efforts for a Bulldog program that returns all five starters and nine letterwinners from last season's team that won a school-record 28 games and made the program's second Sweet 16 appearance.
"I'm very excited to be back on the collegiate level. The college athlete is hungry, passionate and wants to succeed," Harvey said. "I've always cherished being able to reach out and utilize the skills and resources I have to help develop athletes so they can reach their goals and accomplish their dreams. That's a big part of why I wanted to come here, to be able to push these ladies to be their best and get to that next level."
Harvey comes to Starkville after spending the past four years in the NBA. The last two seasons he served as head strength and conditioning coach for the Detroit Pistons, designing a performance program that saw the organization's injury rate decline by 90 percent.
From 2012-14, Harvey worked as assistant strength and conditioning coach with the Orlando Magic. Over those two seasons, he assisted in the design and implementation of workouts for players and supervised all summer conditioning programs.
"I'm excited to have Anthony joining our Mississippi State program as strength and conditioning coach," Schaefer said. "He brings a wealth of experience at the professional and collegiate levels, so we are thrilled to have someone with his expertise guiding such an essential area of our program.
"The weight room is very vital to our program, and we need someone with tremendous leadership there. I believe we have that person in Anthony. From his experiences in the NBA with the Detroit Pistons and Orlando Magic to his successes at the collegiate level, we couldn't be more pleased to be adding Anthony to our program."
Harvey made the jump to the NBA after honing his craft as assistant strength and conditioning coach at Florida A&M. From 2009-12 Harvey oversaw the strength and conditioning efforts of the Rattlers' men's and women's basketball, track and field, cross country and cheerleading squads.
His programs helped make significant reductions in injuries, while his injury prevention and after clinical rehabilitation workout programs helped accelerate student-athlete return rates by 25 percent.
A 2010 graduate of Florida A&M, Harvey served as his alma mater's interim director of strength and conditioning from Aug. 2010 to Jan. 2011.
Harvey also ran the 400m in track and played quarterback for an arena football team.
Harvey spent six years in the United States Army, rising to the rank of Sergeant E-5. He has also risen to a fifth-degree black belt in the martial arts.
Harvey and his wife, Jazmin, were married in July.
For additional information about Mississippi State athletics, please visit HailState.com.
