Jason Slay enters his third season at Illinois State, and the second as associate head coach. He came to Normal after spending two seasons at the University of South Florida as an assistant coach with the Bulls.

From 2017-21 he was the associate head coach at Youngstown State, helping guide the Penguins to the first back-to-back winning seasons in almost a decade, while setting Horizon League-era records for total wins. In 2019-20 YSU accepted a bid to play in the CollegeInsider.com postseason tournament; however, the tournament was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In his first season in northeast Ohio, Slay helped YSU to a program-record 266 steals, breaking the 27-year-old record, while the offense scored the fifth-most points in school history.

Prior to his stint at Youngstown State, he was an assistant coach at Virginia Military Institute (2015-17), East Tennessee State (2014-15), Tennessee State (2013-14), and was the director of basketball operations at Georgia Southern (2012-13). He also spent time as the top assistant coach at Hargrave Military Academy after starting his coaching career at his alma mater of West Virginia State after he graduated with his undergraduate degree in general education in 2008.

As a student-athlete at West Virginia State, and as a four-year captain, he helped guide the Yellow Jackets to the NCAA Division II Sweet 16 in 2004, 2006, and 2007.

Slay comes from a basketball family, as his older brother Tamar played at Marshall and in the NBA for the New Jersey Nets after being drafted in the second round, and his cousin, Ron, played for Tennessee and made a trip to the NCAA Sweet 16 as a freshman in 2000.

Jason and his wife, Brittany, welcomed their daughter, Kaylyn, on February 9, 2022.