Jeffries earned both bachelors and masters degrees at South Carolina State University. He began his head-coaching career at the high school level at Gaffney's Granard High, where he won three consecutive state championships in the early 1960s. That experience would help break Jeffries into collegiate coaching. In 1973, he became the coach of the S.C. State Bulldogs.

Over the next six years, Jeffries would win 50 games and several MEAC championships. Jeffries success gave him the opportunity to coach at the Division I level at Wichita State University in Kansas. It made Jeffries one of the first African American coaches to head a Div. I school. Today, there are just three African American Div. I coaches out of 117 Div. I programs. So Coach Jeffries was a man far ahead of his time.

Jeffries would eventually return to coaching in the Mid-eastern Athletic Conference at historically black Howard University in Washington, D.C. Jeffries later returned to South Carolina State in 1989. Over the next 13 seasons, Jeffries would set a record for most wins in a season, win the MEAC title, a national championship and three Heritage Bowl appearances. Jeffries also established himself as the winningest coach in the history of the Mid-eastern Athletic Conference.

Jeffries is a member of the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame, and the Black Coaches Association awarded him a lifetime achievement award in honor of his career and the impact it had on expanding the opportunities for African American coaches. WJMZ salutes Coach Willie Jeffries, an Upstate native who has made Black history.