OT: First Ever Female Head Coach Of A Division 1 Men's Basketball Team?
According to the article, Becky Hammon is being considered for the job at Colorado State.
She is an assistant under Gregg Popovich with the Spurs.
She was a three time all-merican with the Colorado State women's team.
Would be a ground breaking hire to say the least.
Would you say "boy's college basketball"? Agree with your point though.
Just hire the most qualified person!
Hard to believe 100 years ago, prior to the passage of the 19th Amendment, women couldn't vote.
The best basketball coach I ever played for was a woman. Still could not imagine the dynamics of a female head coach at the D1 level.
Fire Beilein NOW (what has he done for us lately anyhow?)
Go Becky, Go Blue!!!
This guy like Beilein is a totally different guy way ahead of the teaching curve. If she gets any sort of players they will exceed expectations.
My kid plays sports in the SCIAC and I first started leaning more about Popp's roots at Pomona at the bottom of D3. Great story.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/26/sports/basketball/revered-in-nba-spu…
My wife coached a men's hockey team over 30 years ago. When I asked her about this, she acknowledged that there would be some recruits who wouldn't want to play for a female coach, but if she is good, there should still be enough quality players that wouldn't mind.
In my wife's experience, her biggest problem wasn't her own team, by players on teams she played against. And while she said not every player on her team was gung ho to have a female coach, they all defended her to outsiders.
She does have some pretty funny stories too, the best being when she was so pissed at how they played that she barged into the locker room, announcing as she went in "keep your pants on boys, I'm coming in. What she didn't anticipate was that there was another game about to start and another team in the locker room as well. One of the players from the other team was talking to her goalie and turned to him saying, "Holy hell, there's a f***ing broad in the locker room!" Her goalie responded, "That broad's our coach," to which the other player replied, "Holy hell, your coach is a f***ing broad!"
Then, as she was laying into the team for their play, her star player opened his towel and waggled around for her to see. She put him in his place, as only a woman can do, by saying "if that's all you've got you might as well put it away."
I don't understand what the issue is with recruiting. If she's only coaching CSU, I think having Pop vouch for her is good enough to get the level of recruits that she needs. What other coach at CSU's level can say they were a star in the best coaching organization in the NBA?
"I don't understand what the issue is with recruiting."
Well she has no experience with it and it's at least 80% of college basketball success so I would say that's a pretty big issue.
Will she get players to come to Colorado State. Of course. Will she get players good enough to really compete in the Mountain West? Who knows and she has zero track record of doing it.
become good college head coaches? And I'm talking about NBA lifers, not guys who spent a year at the end of the bench doing film breakdown and quality control work.
The pro game is about relationships--getting wealthy people to come together for a common team goal. The college game is about recruiting--getting good and great players to campus. My first call for a college head coaching position would not be to an NBA assistant head coach.
People complaining about whether or not someone who only coached in the NBA could succeed as a coach in college, consider it a mixed bag. Almost like everything else in life. At least she's a former player in the WNBA and has some cache. I'm fairly certain that she can walk into households of decent recruits and convince them to come to CSU as well as any retread or first-time HC who has a Y-chromosome.
But my guess is that if Will Hardy (another Spurs assistant) had been given a chance to coach CSU, nobody would bat an eye.
Sure, it will play some role. It's within the realm of possibility that it might ultimately prove a fatal dealbreaker.
Thing is, EVERY coach, from Urban Meyer to a random grad assistant at EMU, had zero recruiting experience at some point. There's always going to be a first at everything. And without actually seeing her in action as a HC, it's premature to say that Hammon being a woman will definitely bar her from succeeding at her job. If a 4-star recruit turns up his nose at playing for Hammon because of her gender, is that someone you really want on your team? And before you say 'it depends on his talent', swap out 'Hammon for 'Beilein' and swap out 'her gender' for 'his recruiting policy'
Bottom line is that many other (male) coaches with a comparable or worse resume have been given a shot at being a head coach and either succeeded for failed. Literally the only thing that sets Becky Hammon apart from them is her gender. Can you convince me with empirical evidence that her XX chromosomes will be an insurmountable barrier that will categorically prevent her from succeeded as a head coach.
That's NBA-level coaching right there. Don't care the gender. Shoot, if Pat Summitt coached a men's team, I would have played for her.