TJ Harris was announced as Santa Clara Women's Basketball Associate Head Coach on March 31, 2025. He was previously on Loree Payne's staff at Northern Arizona as an assistant coach from 2023-25.Â
Harris joined the Lumberjacks and Loree Payne’s staff as an assistant coach in July of 2022. Harris’s duties included acting as the defensive coordinator, recruiting coordinator, guard development coach, and summer camp director.
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During the 2024-25 season Harris helped lead NAU to a 27-8 record and a 16-2 mark in conference play, both program highs. The team made the WBIT for the first time in program history and picked up the first postseason win ever with a first round upset of Arizona. The Lumberjacks were fourth in DI and first in the Big Sky with 42.1 rebounds per game. They also finished second in the league with a 38.8-percent field goal defense. Harris helped develop unanimous First Team All-Big Sky guard Taylor Feldman and Second Team All-Big Sky guard Nyah Moran.
Before joining the Lumberjacks, Harris spent the 2020-21 season as the assistant coach at Portland State under Chelsey Gregg. With the Vikings, Harris was the co-guard development coach, the academic coordinator, and the compliance coordinator.
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In 2020, Harris earned his Master’s degree in education leadership with an emphasis in principalship from Northern Arizona. During that time, he was an assistant men’s basketball coach at Chandler-Gilbert Community College where he coordinated off-season team workouts and worked with the guards and posts on off-season development.
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Harris was no stranger to Flagstaff before officially joining the Lumberjacks, as he served as the head boys and girls basketball coach at Northland Preparatory Academy from 2017 to 2020.
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He graduated from the University of Great Falls (now University of Providence) in 2016 with a Bachelor’s degree in secondary education with an emphasis in broad-field science. At UGF, Harris was a first team All-Frontier Conference selection in 2014-15 after earning an honorable mention nod in 2013-14. He scored 1,000 career points, ranks third all-time in assists and is 10th on UGF’s all-time scoring list.
Harris and his wife Elyce have been married for six years and have two daughters, Alessandra and Esmeralda. The family has two shih tzus, Kevin and Russell.
