Pursuing a WNBA Coaching Career: A Personal Road Map

The Early Years: Building a Foundation

When I was a little girl, I dreamed of playing basketball. As soon as it was possible, I begged my parents to sign me up to play. It was my favorite activity in physical education during school. I played basketball whenever I could and was a varsity starter for all four years of high school. I went to basketball camps all summer. I played at the rec center and the park with my friends in the off-season. I dreamed of basketball when I wasn't playing, and I watched basketball when I wasn't dreaming. I love basketball, and I always knew that when I was finished playing, I wanted to be a basketball coach — and that someday I hoped to coach in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA).

Many young athletes have big dreams about how far their sports talent will take them. Some want to play as long as possible; others want to play and then coach. As much as I love playing, my dream has always been to get into coaching after college — and more specifically, to become an assistant coach in the WNBA. I want to be more involved in the fundamentals and coach-player relationships, so I would prefer a position as an assistant coach. Head coaches carry additional burdens related to the business and public relations side of the team, and those are burdens I would rather not deal with. I would love to focus on the sport itself, co-managing a team of highly skilled and talented women and helping them continually become better players and people.

Becoming a coach in the WNBA is even more difficult than becoming a player. Coaching is a challenging career, and even fewer people make it into coaching at that level than into playing. With only 12 teams and only a few coaching spots on each team, the field is highly competitive, and every position I take along the way is part of proving myself as ready. Owners and general managers are constantly on the lookout, critiquing everyone who catches their attention. The first task at hand is to catch their attention and then to excel in every possible way while they are watching. It is also about selling myself and getting my name and information out there. They have to know that I want it and that I am doing everything possible to prepare myself.

The process of moving up the ladder in coaching, in pursuit of my dream job, is not unlike moving toward my goals of playing college basketball. What set me apart from others was the work I did to make myself good enough to start four years on varsity, to catch their attention, and to outshine others on the court while remaining a team player and leader. Basketball is really all about the team, especially women's basketball. Besides proving my talent and skill on the court, I also had to prove my excellence in the classroom and my maturity and ability as a leader among my teammates and peers.

At my high school, I was the first — and to this point only — player elected team captain as a sophomore. I was re-elected as team captain in both my junior and senior years. Being a team captain was a very natural experience for me. I loved my teammates like they were my sisters and seemed to have the ability to hold them all together. During the four years I was on the team, there was only one incident that threatened the team's balance, but my co-captain and I handled it quickly and effectively so as to avoid any breakdown in team success.

We were a great team, but we were also known for our academic achievements. Most of the team, including myself, took honors and AP classes and made good grades. As a team, we always maintained above a 3.25 GPA. As captain, I took it upon myself to stay aware of all academic needs before they became problems, and also to celebrate significant academic achievements as much as our athletic ones. I also felt it was important to engage in community service projects together as a team. Colleges want to see a diversity of experience as well as signs of community involvement, so I decided we should pursue service opportunities together — ones that enhanced our camaraderie and allowed us to share our talents with children who wanted to follow in our footsteps but didn't have the resources that we had. For me, it was even better because I started working on my coaching résumé while still in high school, which is why I tell this part of my story in describing the pursuit of my dream job.

From Player to Coach: The Career Path Begins

Agarwal (n.d.), a well-known author and career counselor, says, "To start with, you have to have the talent and the skill of playing the game, and then you have to have a thorough knowledge of the game and all the rules and regulations too. Initially, most coaches would start at the high school level of coaching and then go on…" (p. 1). One of the reasons I did not have to start at the high school level is because of the coaching I did in the community while in high school, the three years I spent as captain, and my high level of skill and talent in playing the game. Balancing leadership, academics, and high achievements on the court is what earned me a college scholarship, and my performance in college — combined with my past résumé building and my acquisition of a Master of Science in Sports Management — are the components that landed me my first coaching job as head coach at Brooks Community College.

It is fairly uncommon to receive a head-coaching job right out of college, but the opportunity came together through a connection: one of my assistant coaches had played basketball with the Athletic Director at Brooks. Being a coach at Brooks meant that I had to be prepared to coach players who strive to earn scholarship offers at Division I universities — schools with programs comparable to Tennessee, UConn, and the like. Some of my players dreamed of someday playing in the WNBA, while I dreamed of coaching there.

In my first coaching job at Brooks, I gained the experience necessary to receive job offers from five different Division I universities with strong basketball programs: the University of California–Berkeley, Oregon State University, Texas State University, the University of Hawaii, and the University of Tennessee. Each of these positions was an important step in the direction of my dream job. Reaching the University of Tennessee was my goal because I knew that working there would be the big opportunity I needed in the college-coaching world to get noticed on the national stage. Tennessee has an incredible tradition of excellence and victory in basketball, and the program is known for its well-rounded athletes and high performance standards. Getting to Tennessee was just the break I needed to reach the next level — but performing well there was even more important than simply arriving.

Granger (2007) says, "Many students cannot imagine that they can spend a lifetime working in an area they enjoy and in which they can apply their individual talents and skills" (pp. xxiii–xxiv). I value what Granger has to offer to the world of career counseling, but most of all I relate to what he is saying. I have always known that I can pursue this life, and nothing has ever made me doubt my ability.