Tiffany Morton B.A. '09, MSE '12
Tiffany Morton receives the UW-Whitewater Outstanding Recent Alumni Award
Written by Kristine Zaballos | Photo submitted
Tiffany Morton was a standout high school basketball player at Beloit Memorial in the early 2000s. Enough so that she caught the attention of Keri Carollo, then as now the head coach of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s women’s team. Carollo was told Morton wasn’t interested and that she’d already committed to UW-Milwaukee.
After playing one year of college ball, though, Morton knew she hadn’t yet found her fit. This time she was the one who made the call — and after talking to Coach Carollo on the phone, she knew she would play for her.
Her subsequent career at Whitewater included leading the Warhawks to the 2008 NCAA Division III Final Four. A post-graduation career first in professional basketball and then in coaching led to her spending the 2021-22 season as an assistant coach at Rice University, helping the Owls sign the top recruiting class in Conference USA in 2022. In 2023, she was named assistant coach of UW-Madison women’s basketball team under Head Coach Marisa Moseley.
Morton, who earned a B.A. in psychology in 2009 and an MSE in professional development in 2012, is the recipient of the UW-Whitewater’s 2024 Outstanding Recent Alumni Award, presented to alumni within 15 years of earning their degree and based on criteria that includes a demonstration of professional achievement and volunteer or civic involvement.
Morton found the athletic community at UW-Whitewater to be an amazing extended family.
“We saw football, men’s basketball succeeding and thought, we want to do that. We have an amazing team and we can do that and compete at the highest level.”
And succeed the team did. Morton, a two-time All-American for the Warhawks, led UW-Whitewater to its best season in program history with a 29-4 record in 2007-08. That season, the Warhawks claimed the WIAC tournament title and made a run to the NCAA Division III Final Four where she earned All-Tournament Team honors.
A three-time All-WIAC pick, Morton broke the UW-Whitewater record with 28 career double-doubles and ended her career with top-ten marks in scoring (1,215), rebounding (740) and blocks (98).
“And my family was at every game,” said Morton. “Everyone knew who they were, and I could always hear my mom’s voice.”
She says the best decision she made was to transfer to UW-Whitewater.
“It was an amazing opportunity and it exceeded my expectations,” said Morton. “I was able to walk away with two degrees while breaking lots and lots of records — that was more than I expected.”
“I was able to compete at a high level with a great group of people and with somebody who really believes in me,” said Morton.
That someone was Keri Carollo, the head coach of women’s basketball for the last 24 years.
“Tiffany was a catalyst in helping put Warhawk Women's Basketball back on the map,” said Carollo. “She was a dominant force inside and broke records for her rebounding and scoring ability."
“Tiffany was also an amazing teammate — a leader in our community and on our campus. She has gone on to become a phenomenal basketball coach at the NCAA Division I level. We could not be prouder of all her accomplishments and her continued support of UW-Whitewater and Warhawk Women's Basketball.”
After Morton graduated, she participated in a foreign tour overseas before playing in a semi-pro league in Atlanta. After that she was offered a graduate assistant job by Carollo.
As an undergraduate Morton had minored in coaching and had begun to think about the impact of the game, focusing on the professional development side. The two-year thesis capstone of her Master of Science in Education in Professional Development explored why Division III athletes compete.
“There’s no scholarship money,” Morton said. “It’s all about the love and desire to compete that keeps you in the game.”
Another foreign tour later nearly led to Morton pursuing international basketball, but an assistant coach offer at the University of Montevallo (Alabama) came before her work visa. She later served as assistant coach at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, from 2015-18, leading the Bears to their first NCAA Tournament appearance, as well as Southern Conference championship, in 2018. During her three seasons at Mercer, the Bears were 79-19.
She then served as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Georgia State from 2018-21, helping lead the Panthers to their most wins (17) and Sun Belt Conference wins (11) in over a decade during her first season with them.
After spending the 2021-22 season as an assistant coach at Rice University in Houston, the call came that would bring Morton back to Wisconsin to serve as assistant coach at UW-Madison.
“When I got the job, every last one of my (UW-Whitewater) teammates reached out to me,” she said. “It’s an amazing support system.”
Morton is also the mother of 2-year old Micah, who she confirms is absolutely a coach’s child — the first time he put two words together to make a phrase, it was “Let’s go!”
