Eric Ely is in his ninth season with the Oregon State women’s basketball program, and third as Assistant Athletic Director for Women’s Basketball. Ely spent his prior six seasons as an assistant coach.
In his new role, Ely helps with campus outreach and coordinates the team’s practice players. He has also been insrumental in creating a partnership between the team and Corvalis Southside Outreach, a group that reached out to underprivledged kids in south Corvallis.
During his time on head coach Scott Rueck’s staff, the Beavers have seen a dramatic turnaround, culminating in a Final Four appearance in 2016. Ely has helped guide the Beavers to three Pac-12 titles, as well as a 32-win season in 2015-16.
In his six years as an assistant coach, Ely mentored some of the best post players in the Pac-12, highlighted by a trio of Pac-12 All-Defensive Team centers who own four of the top eight best single-season shot block totals in conference history.
The lineage started with El Sara Greer in 2010-11, who swatted what was then a school record 92 shots and averaged 9.2 points and 8.1 rebounds while shooting 56 percent from the field. One year later, Patricia Bright eclipsed Greer and tallied 115 rejections, converted 57.9 percent of her attempts from the floor and put up 8.7 ppg.
The run on dominant centers culminated most recently with Ruth Hamblin, who set a school and Pac-12 single-season record with 141 blocks in 2013-14, before setting the Beavers’ career record for rejections in 2014-15 and the Pac-12 career record in 2015-16. The Canadian became the Beavers first All-American in over a decade in April of 2015, when she was named to the AP All-America Third Team. Hamblin also earned Pac-12 Player of the Year (Media) honors, and back-to-back Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year honors. She also produced the first triple-double at Oregon State in 30 years on Jan. 13, 2014 against Oregon with totals of 23 points, 12 rebounds and a school-record 10 blocks.
Ely owns over 15 years of Division I coaching experience, with nine coming from stints at Oral Roberts (1998-2004 and 2007-10) and Missouri (2004-07). He helped Oral Roberts to four postseason appearances, including three NCAA trips under head coach Jerry Finkbeiner. At Missouri, Ely served as the recruiting coordinator and worked with post players under head coach Cindy Stein.
In just his first season with the Golden Eagles in 1998-99, Ely helped coach the team to the Summit League title and the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance. When Ely rejoined the Oral Roberts staff, the Golden Eagles repeated as Summit League champions, winning 23 games en route to the school’s first ever regular-season Summit League title and a trip to the Women’s National Invitational Tournament (WNIT).
Before joining Oral Roberts, Ely was the head coach at Mt. Vernon Nazarene University in Mt. Vernon, Ohio from 1996-98. He guided the Lady Cougars to a 31-36 overall record in two seasons, improving from 12 wins during his inaugural year to 19 in 1997-98. In his final season at MVNU, Ely was honored as the National Christian College Athletic Association East Region Coach of the Year and also received votes from the Ohio Coaching Association as one of the top women’s college coaches in the state of Ohio.
Ely started his coaching career at his alma mater, Northwest Nazarene in Nampa, Idaho, where he served as assistant coach from 1987-1996. He was instrumental in the recruitment of several NAIA All-Americans and helped the Lady Crusaders to a NAIA Division II runner-up finish during the 1994-95 season.
As a player, Ely spent time in NBA training camp with the Detroit Pistons and played in the Los Angeles Lakers’ summer pro league. He played professionally for one year in France, where he was tabbed as the Outstanding American Player by the French media during the 1980-81 season, and four years in Brazil, earning a lifetime contract and garnering all-star status in 1984 and 1985.
Ely earned a bachelor’s degree from Northwest Nazarene in 1982, adding a master’s degree from Albertson College of Idaho in 1995. He and his wife, Regina, of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, have two children, C.J. and Rachel.
