Jessie Kenlaw

Jessie Kenlaw (born July 3, 1953) worked in collegiate and professional women's basketball between the 1970s to 2000s. After playing a year of collegiate basketball with Savannah State University, Kenlaw started playing professional basketball with the Women's Professional Basketball League in the late 1970s. Kenlaw later briefly joined the Ladies Professional Basketball Association and Women's American Basketball Association during the early 1980s. For her coaching career, Kenlaw started as an assistant coach for Lamar University from 1987 to 1988. After moving to the University of Houston in 1988, Kenlaw continued working as an assistant coach before being named head coach of the Houston Cougars women's basketball team in 1990. As Houston's head coach from 1990 to 1998, Kenlaw had 104 wins and 123 losses.

Kenlaw resumed her assistant coach tenure with the Colorado Xplosion in 1998 and Louisiana Tech from 1999 to 2000. In 2000, Kenlaw entered the WNBA and had assistant coaching positions with the Portland Fire, Seattle Storm and Houston Comets until 2007. In 2008, Kenlaw was an assistant coach and scouting director for the Washington Mystics before being named interim head coach for the team in July 2008. During her head coaching tenure with the Mystics, Kenlaw had two wins and ten losses before being replaced by Julie Plank in November 2008.