Eastern athletic director Brad Fields announced the hiring of Nate Davis as women's basketball coach. Davis is charged with the task of building the women's basketball program into a perennial contender in the MAC Freedom and the region.

Davis replaces Katie Levis, who was 19-53 in three seasons as head coach.

Though the job will be his first as a head coach, Davis is no stranger to the building process. In his ten years as an assistant coach, he has played an integral role in turning a pair of programs around. Davis comes to Eastern from the South Carolina-Aiken, where he served as an assistant in the men's program under Vince Alexander. In his five years in Aiken, the Pacers improved from a team near the bottom of the Peach Belt Conference to a top 25 team in NCAA Division II.

Fields pointed to Davis' experience in building programs and his talents as a recruiter and teacher as important factors in the decision to bring him to Eastern: "In addition to his obvious talent as a coach, I can attest to Nate’s outstanding characteristics as a human being. As the parent of a young daughter, I can think of no one better my wife and I would rather our daughter play for that Nate, and to me, that's the ultimate compliment."

While the Eagles are scheduled to return the bulk of their scoring and several key young players for the 2010-11 season, Davis will have work to do in building the Eastern program into a top team. Eastern finished the 2009-10 campaign at 7-17 with a 1-13 mark in the league. Fields, however, believes that Davis has the ability to do it. Prior to his time in South Carolina, Davis worked with Alexander at Division II Mansfield, where they helped the Mountaineers to improve from a nine win team to a PSAC contender. As part of both rebuilding efforts, Davis has earned a reputation as a tireless and effective recruiter.

Fields, who was able to observe Davis at work when he was at USC Aiken, commented, "It was just a matter of time before this outstanding coach got a chance to lead his own program and I feel truly blessed that we are able to give him that opportunity."