As the seconds ticked away, former Jackson State player and current Arkansas-Pine Bluff women’s basketball coach Dawn Thornton reflected on the journey with a smile.

It was a moment of celebration after her team’s historic 74-70 victory Sunday against the Southeastern Conference member Arkansas at the Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

“This is my biggest win of my career,” Thornton said. “But it is bigger than the win for me. This win is for our community, and for the school. I’m from Jackson, Mississippi, you understand what that looks like. A lot of things we have in Jackson as a student-athlete, we don’t have at University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff.”

Thornton, 41, is becoming known as a giant slayer as a coach. Before the upset of the Razorbacks, she led Prairie View to wins against Houston, Lamar, Memphis, Louisiana Tech, Sam Houston State and Nicholls State.

When the buzzer sounded in Fayetteville, Thornton thought about her long journey.

She knew this victory was about her parents, William Bo Brown and Imelda Brown, and sister, Kidada Brown, who were at home screaming in excitement.

The win was  about her Callaway High School coaches, Mississippi girls basketball legends Maxine Johnson and Harriet Speech, and the knowledge they poured into her.

She thought about having torn an ACL in her senior season in high school and losing a scholarship to Southern Miss. That led her to Atlanta Metropolitan College for two years before going to Jackson State, where as a role player she helped Jackson State share a regular-season SWAC championship with Alabama State in 2003 under then-coach Denise Taylor.

She also remembered how deeply hurt she felt about being passed over for a job as a graduate assistant at Jackson State and then four times for an assistant coaching position there.

“Jackson State has always been my dream job,” Thornton said. “I bleed blue and white. Who would not want to come back to their alma mater and coach? A place where you won a championship at, a place where you are from and where your family is from. I realized that God had a different plan for me and I accepted that.”

Thornton reflected on being out of coaching for two years until Tougaloo College called, and how she spent three years there. How it was not until current Jackson State coach Tomekia Reed introduced her to Prairie View coach Toyelle Wilson, under whom Thornton became an HBCU assistant coach before being named head coach in April 2014.

“Tomekia (Reed) and I do have a great relationship with each other,” Thornton said. “I think that we have become rivals has impacted our relationship a lot. But I do have a lot of love for her, her family, her son and even her dad before her dad passed away. I was there when her son was born. We have shared a lot of great monumental moments with each other. Those are some memories I will never forget.”

In her fifth season at UAPB (4-7), she has worked under four athletic directors, with five strength and conditioning coaches and still does not have a strength and conditioning coach for her team. Despite the adversity, her team has gotten better each year.

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For Thornton, it is all about the dream to her players as she teaches them to live and play with heart. Thornton wants to help her players succeed in life off the court.

“We are selling dreams,” Thornton said. “I'm thankful to have a bunch of young Black girls that want to be a part of history and believe in me and my vision and what I want for this program, in spite of what we don’t have.”

Thornton said her success can be attributed to being the No. 1 recruiter in the country. And her faith in God and living out her purpose to make an impact on young Black women.

“I have been the underdog my whole life,” Thornton said. “I’ve been shortened in this profession for a long time. I was interim coach for a year and had to prove myself to deserve a contract at Prairie View. I had to coach at UAPB for three years before they gave me a contract. I have been the underdog my whole life, and it hurts. But it pushes me and drives me as a leader to help young women.”

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Former Jackson State player Dawn Thornton coaches upset of Arkansas