Tennessee women’s basketball will pay tribute next season to two of its former players, Nikki McCray-Penson and the late Tasha Butts, who both died this year after battles with breast cancer.

The Lady Vols basketball team shared photos on Twitter Oct. 30 of their warm-up shirts, with two patches featuring Butts’ and McCray-Penson’s initials.

“It definitely hit home for me because me and Coach Nikki were close and we still talked to this day,” Tennessee forward Rickea Jackson said in a video shared on Twitter by Maria M. Cornelius.

Jackson, getting choked up, was unable to finish her thoughts. Jackson played for McCray-Penson while at Mississippi State in the 2020-21 season. McCray-Penson stepped down from coaching in October 2021 due to health reasons, and Jackson went on to transfer to Tennessee for the 2022-23 season.

“I think it means a lot to be able to have these on our warmup shirts, and I know it’s very hard for Rickea because she was so close to Coach Nikki, and it’s hard for me too, because those are losses in the Lady Vol family,” teammate Sara Puckett said, also pausing to hold back tears. “Now it’s just playing for them. They’re part of the legacy, they built on the foundation of this program, so it’s just being able to come out here and play for especially them.”

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McCray-Penson, a two-time Olympic champion and three-time WNBA All-Star, initially gained prominence during her time playing for the Tennessee women’s basketball team in the 1990s. She made her WNBA debut in the league’s second season in 1998.

McCray-Penson retired from playing in 2006 and promptly transitioned to a coaching career. She began as an assistant coach at Western Kentucky and then moved to South Carolina in 2008 to work under her long-time friend Dawn Staley. In her final season in Columbia in 2017, McCray-Penson guided the Gamecocks and A’ja Wilson to their first national championship. Following this, McCray-Penson took on the role of head coach at Old Dominion from 2017 to 2020. She later led the team at Mississippi State before stepping down in October 2021.

In 2013, McCray-Penson faced a personal battle when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She passed away on July 7, 2023.

Butts, who played college basketball for Tennessee, was a former coach at Georgetown, where she began coaching this past April following a coaching career at Georgia Tech. She guided Georgia Tech through back-to-back appearances in the NCAA Tournament, most recently securing an at-large bid in 2021-22 — the same season she announced her diagnosis with advanced stage metastatic breast cancer. Butts passed away on Oct. 22.