Tennessee Basketball hires Justin Caldwell, husband of Lady Vols coach Kim Caldwell
Tennessee Basketball on Friday announced the addition of Justin Caldwell as the program’s new player development coordinator. Caldwell is the husband of Tennessee Lady Vols basketball head coach Kim Caldwell.
“I am thrilled to join the University of Tennessee men’s basketball staff,” Caldwell said in a press release. “It is a true privilege to work under someone like Rick Barnes, not only due to his immense success as a coach, but also because of who he is as a person.
“I cannot wait to get to work with this talented team and do all I can to help this excellent program continue its success.”
Justin Caldwell, a native of Mullens, West Virginia, previously worked as head coach at Glenville State, after a stop at Division II California University of Pennsylvania. He started his coaching career at Glenville State as an assistant coach in 2013.
Justin Caldwell was on Dan D’Antoni’s staff at Marshall for one season, while Kim Caldwell was the head coach of the women’s program.
“We are pleased to add Justin to our staff here at Tennessee,” Rick Barnes said. “He possesses a strong basketball mind and has shown the ability to develop young people.
“Justin’s passion and coaching acumen will assuredly assist our program on a daily basis.”
Kim Caldwell announced as new head coach of the Lady Vols in April
Justin Caldwell played at West Virginia Wesleyan for three seasons before transferring to Glenville State for the final year of his collegiate career. He played professionally in Luxembourg for two seasons.
Kim Caldwell went 26-7 at Marshall last season, after a seven-year run at Glenville State, where she went 191-24. She won the Division II national championship in 2022 and went to Division II Final Fours in both 2022 and 2023.
She was announced as the new head coach of the Lady Vols on April 7.
Tennessee announced three staff promotions in July
In July the Vols announced three promotions, with Bryan Lentz and Lucas Campbell moving up to assistant coaches and Riley Collins to assistant director of player development.
Lentz previously worked as the director of player development for the Vols while Campbell was director of recruiting and Collins was a graduate assistant.
In 2023 the NCAA expanded coaching staffs to add two additional assistant coaches.
Lentz had been Tennessee’s director of player development since 2018. He was an assistant coach at Appalachian State for four years, 2014-18, and worked for Rick Barnes as a special assistant and video coordinator at Texas from 2010-14.
He was an assistant coach from 2001-08 at Lenoir-Rhyne, where his father, John Lentz, was the longtime head coach.
Campbell was a walk-on guard for the Vols from 2015-19, was part of the 2018 SEC Championship team and appeared in 16 games. He was a graduate assistant for Barnes from 2019-21 before being hired by former ETSU head coach Desmond Oliver as the director of basketball operations for the Bucs. He returned to Tennessee in 2022.
Collins joined the Tennessee staff in the summer of 2022 as a graduate assistant. He worked at Division III Marymount University in Arlington, Va., from 2020-22. He was a guard and three-year captain at Division III Drew University in his home state of New Jersey.
