Trish Roberts began her collegiate basketball career at North Georgia State College, where she played for one season before transferring to Emporia State College (Kansas). She was a member of the 1976 US Olympic basketball team that won the silver medal, playing with Pat Summitt. Roberts transferred to UT for her last season of eligibility to play for Summitt. In her one season of play, she set many UT records, among them the Stokely Field House record for 51 points in an intercollegiate game. Ten years later, Tony White, of the men’s team, also scored 51 against Auburn, to share the record. Roberts was UT’s first Kodak All-American (1977) and the same year was Tennessee Female Athlete of the Year. Her single season points scoring average was 29.9, and she had 428 field goals.
Upon graduation, Roberts played a successful three seasons in the Women’s Basketball League (1978–82) for the Minnesota Fillies. She began her head coaching career at the University of Maine, where her teams won a Seaboard Conference title (1989) and two North Atlantic Conference titles in 1990 and 1991. She then assumed the head coach’s position at the University of Michigan. In 1996 she served for one year as coach of the professional Atlanta American Basketball League team. She then went to Stony Brook as head coach. She also served as assistant at the University of North Carolina (1986–88), the University of Wisconsin (1985–86), the University of Illinois (1984–85), and Central Michigan University (1982–84). She captained the US National team in 1979. She was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000.