Pokey Chatman was the last black woman to serve as head coach of a WNBA team. She was fired by the Indiana Fever following the 2019 season, and replaced with Marianne Stanley — a former assistant coach with the championship-winning Washington Mystics. The New York Liberty parted ways with Katie Smith, too, opening another head coaching job. Today, the Liberty made official the hiring of Walt Hopkins, who had worked for three seasons under Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve. Having served on the coaching staffs of some of the best head coaches in the game, with championship cred on their resumes to boot, Stanley and Hopkins are qualified and seem poised to turn around teams that failed to make the playoffs in recent years.
But, as Dawn Staley, head coach of the South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball team and the USA Basketball Women’s National Team, wrote in an essay in The Players’ Tribune (2018), where are all the black coaches?
Where things stand
In the WNBA, there are two black coaches: James Wade (Chicago Sky) and Derek Fisher (Los Angeles Sparks), and both had successful first seasons in 2019. The Sky returned to the playoffs for the first time in a few years and Wade was named Coach of the Year. Fisher, meanwhile, got the Sparks back to the the playoffs, but the team flamed out in the semifinals, losing the win-or-go-home Game 3 amid the controversial benching of Candace Parker. (General manager Penny Toler, who hired Fisher without considering or interviewing other candidates, was then fired following a controversy of her own.)
Before hiring Hopkins, the Liberty interviewed “roughly 20 candidates,” including some from the NCAA and the NBA G League, according to Erica L. Ayala, who covers the Liberty for The Athletic.
With all positions now filled heading into the Feb. 1 start of free agency, the WNBA has four women head coaches, eight men head coaches, two African-American head coaches (Fisher, Wade), two former NBA players (Bill Laimbeer, Fisher) and one former WNBA player (Sandy Brondello).
Head coaches in the WNBA
Nicki Collen, Atlanta Dream
James Wade, Chicago Sky
Curt Miller, Connecticut Sun
Brian Agler, Dallas Wings
Marianne Stanley, Indiana Fever
Bill Laimbeer, Las Vegas Aces
Derek Fisher, Los Angeles Sparks
Cheryl Reeve, Minnesota Lynx
Walt Hopkins, New York Liberty
Sandy Brondello, Phoenix Mercury
Dan Hughes, Seattle Storm
Mike Thibault, Washington Mystics
So, adding onto Staley’s question, we also must ask: Where are all the black women head coaches? Where are all the former WNBA player head coaches?
Where things are going (hopefully)
Of the 144 players holding roster spots in the WNBA in 2019, at least 127 of them (yes, that’s one-hundred and twenty-seven), are black or women of color. For those in favor of a percentage, that’s approximately 88 percent of the players. With these numbers reflective of the WNBA’s makeup historically, there has been no shortage of former players to choose from — most of them black, many of them legends and Hall of Famers — when it comes to searching for a head coach.
When Noelle Quinn retired from playing after the Seattle Storm’s 2018 championship-winning season, Dan Hughes hired her to an assistant coaching position beginning in 2019. Camille Little’s last season was in 2019 with the Phoenix Mercury, and Brian Agler brought her onto his coaching staff. Perhaps the next black-woman-former-WNBA-player head coach will rise from the assistant coaching ranks.
After all, no player makes it into the WNBA without an incredibly high basketball IQ. Additionally, most WNBA players have college degrees and many show strong leadership in other businesses outside of basketball. So, just when will they be viewed as viable candidates to coach the WNBA teams they once played for?