Shannon Sword

    Entering her first season on the Youngstown State women's basketball staff is former Cleveland State standout Shannon Sword, who spent the last two seasons as a graduate assistant at Ashland University.
    With the Eagles, Sword was responsible for on-floor coaching, film exchange and day-to-day operations of the program.
    Prior to Ashland, Sword spent a season as the top assistant coach at Manhattanville College, where she worked with the post players and helped organize and conduct team practices.
    Sword has also been the head coach of the Dayton Lady Hoopsters, a 15-and-under AAU team and an assistant at Miamisburg High School.  In her lone season at Miamisburg the squad went 23-1 and ranked fourth in the final state poll.
    A native of Miamisburg, Ohio, Sword had a prolific playing career at Cleveland State University where she was a four-year letterwinner and three-year starter.
    A First-Team All-Horizon League pick in 2003-04, she was the team captain and most valuable player her senior year.  Sword is CSU's all-time leader in career three-point percentage (.380), and ranks second in career free-throw percentage (.802), tied for sixth in games played (113), 12th in scoring (1,136) and 13th in rebounding (523).
    Sword graduated magna cum laude from Cleveland State in 2004 with a degree in sport management. She was on the Horizon League All-Academic Team for four years and was a four-time CSU Athletic Academic Excellence award winner. She earned her master's degree in sport education from Ashland in May 2008.