Attention everybody! There?s a new sheriff in town. Her name is Carolyn Jenkins, and the aura of victory for the Sac State women?s basketball team is the gun on her hip.

Jenkins is no stranger to winning basketball. She has been an assistant coach for two NCAA powerhouses; Michigan State the last four years, and Stanford in the previous four years. While at Stanford, she helped head coach Tara VanDerveer lead the Cardinal to the Sweet 16 all four years, the final-four two of those years, and a national championship in 1991-92. With Michigan State, she was the top assistant and recruiting coordinator for a team that made the NCAA tournament three out of four years.

She has a history of winning, and her success proves that she knows basketball talent when she sees it. That?s why at the age of 31, she?s taking over as head coach at Sac State, and that?s why people have to believe her when she says that her new team is on the verge of becoming a contender.

“We have a lot of potential here,” Jenkins said. “This is a great time to be a part of Sac State, and we are only beginning to touch on the potential of what this area has to offer to women?s basketball.”

While Jenkins? past success speaks for itself, it?s not something that she ever brags about, or uses to gain respect from her players. She gets her respect from knowing basketball and knowing how to motivate.

“She has great leadership skills and that rubs off onto all of us,” sophomore Nichole Hardaway said. “She gets the best out of us, both in practice and everything that we do. She gives it her all, and it makes us give it our all. Everybody is stepping up this year.” Last season, the women?s basketball team floundered under the direction of former coach Sue Huffman, but in the short time that Jenkins has had to work with her new Hornet squad, she has stressed discipline, and she has her team believing that the days of losing are over.

“She has us a lot more focused, and she has us ready to win,” Junior forward Sephora Scoubes said. “She is very disciplined, she knows what she is doing, and we believe that our hard work in practice will pay off.”

While Jenkins came to Sac State for the opportunity to become a head coach, it also gives her the opportunity to come home to California. Originally from Fresno, where she was entered in the Fresno Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999, Jenkins played basketball, volleyball and softball, for San Joaquin Memorial High School. She then moved on to UC Berkeley, where she played 104 basketball games for the Bears, and graduated in 1990 with a degree in economics.

She is no stranger to Northern California, and she believes that Sacramento is a great place to be as part of collegiate sports. She sees great things to come in the next 5-10 years at Sac State.

“We can be a perennial powerhouse,” she said. “As the city of Sacramento grows, and becomes one of the premier cities in both California and the country, there will be more and more opportunity to build a great program. Right now, we?re at ground zero and we?re just touching on what we can accomplish.”

Jenkins is viewed by her players as a player?s coach, but she puts a lot of emphasis on discipline. One of the first actions that she took as head coach was implementing what she calls “early morning boot camp,” in which the players had to practice every morning at 6 a.m. They not only honed their skills, but became conditioned by running and spending time in the weight room during the boot camps.

“She means business,” Hardaway said. “But I, and the rest of us, know that we can go in and talk to her at any time. She has an open door policy, and we all know that. She wants the best for all of us.”

Jenkins came to Sac State, and has inherited a team that she did not recruit. She has a style that they have not played, but she says that the team has responded well, and that it?s up to them to get the job done.

“If there is one thing that I stress to them, it?s that the level of their success is in their control,” Jenkins said. “I want players that can do it up-tempo, and this group has that ability.”

She believes in herself, has the confidence of her team, and in her past she has “walked the walk.” Carolyn Jenkins has people in Sacramento believing that the word disappointment is not synonymous with women?s basketball.