Faulkner University

Jim Sanderson returns to the court of Tine Davis Gymnasium, where he led Faulkner Men's Basketball for 24 seasons, for the 2025-26 program as a volunteer assistant for the women's program alongside his former player and assistant coach Jake Mitchell. 

During his tenure at Faulkner, Sanderson built the Eagles’ program into one of the NAIA’s elite. He is a 2018 inductee into the Faulkner Athletics Hall of Fame, having led the Eagles in two stints from 1985-89 and 1994-2014 with an all-time record of 481-297, the 10th-most wins among NAIA coaches at the time of his retirement in '14. Sanderson's teams won three SSAC regular season titles and four SSAC Tournament championships and made eight trips to the national tournament while he won a total of five Coach of the Year honors. The Eagles reached rarefied air under his leadership, winning the school's first NAIA National Championship in any sport in 2001 on a team led by fellow Faulkner Hall of Famers Treives Henry and Paul Little, two of Sanderson's four All-Americans and 19 All-Conference and All-District winners. In addition to winning the national championship, Faulkner made appearances in the Sweet 16, Elite Eight and Fab Four rounds of the national tournament under Sanderson. 

After stepping down at Faulkner, Sanderson was an assistant coach at Ramsay High School in Birmingham before he coached three more seasons of NAIA basketball at Freed-Hardeman from 2016-19. He finished his head coaching career with a record of 517-352, seventh-best in the NAIA at the time of his retirement. He went on to coach at Next Level Academy in Wetumpka for two seasons before serving as head coach of Alabama Christian Academy from 2022-23 and later served on staff at Landmark church of Christ, where he and his wife Jill are longtime members. They are the parents of Kyle and Katie. 

Prior to his coaching career, Sanderson attended the University of Alabama, where his father Wimp famously was head coach from 1980-92, obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree in Physical Education in 1982.