Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve is apparently taking the advice of Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw and putting it to practice in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
During last year’s NCAA tournament, the Fighting Irish’s coach lamented on the lack of women in the coaching ranks and vowed to do her part in changing that.
Coach Muffet McGraw gave a passionate speech about gender equality – and it’s a slam dunk. pic.twitter.com/ywOOBkeUfg
— Global Citizen Canada (@GlblCtznCAN) April 6, 2019
Not only has McGraw decided to follow her words up with action, Reeve is following up with deeds of her own in Minnesota.
The last two offseasons have now seen two of her male assistants become head coaches in new towns. James Wade became the Chicago Sky’s head coach and led the Sky to a 20-14 record and came within an eyelash of advancing to the WNBA semifinals. Wade was last season’s Coach of the Year.
Two weeks ago, another one of her ex-assistants, Walt Hopkins, made his new move official when he was tapped as the new coach of the New York Liberty as they prepare for their first season at Barclays Center. Hopkins, it appears, will also bring another Lynx assistant in Shelley Patterson with him to Brooklyn.
If it appears that the Lynx and Liberty have been virtually swapping their coaching staffs since the Hopkins hire, one may be right. Along with his move and Patterson’s rumored plans, Reeve decided to tap former Lynx player (and ex-New York coach) Katie Smith to her staff.
Gotham’s WNBA team had, unarguably its most two tumultuous seasons while under Smith. The team went 17-51, which was far from the previous success the Libs were accustomed to, and were playing at Westchester County Center, which is far from the nucleus of New York’s large fanbase in the boroughs.
According to Reeve herself, she was happy for Wade and Hopkins, but also astonished at the greater opportunities that men have to coach women’s sports and how that has not translated in the opposite direction.
We did fast track two guys into head coaching roles. They were tremendous when they were here, but it was really eye-opening, the benefit of being a man in coaching.
–Cheryl Reeve, Lynx coach/general manager (per Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
Reeve says she now wants to ensure future products of her coaching tree are women and that the WNBA should also be held to a higher standard on the issue of diversity in coaching.
We have to do more to scrutinize the ways in which the hiring process happens. Let’s be better than what we’re seeing with our counterparts in the NFL and NBA.
–Cheryl Reeve, Lynx coach/general manager (per Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
While the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports has consistently given the WNBA high marks for its commitment to hiring women and African-Americans for front office positions, eight of the 12 current head coaching positions in the WNBA are held by men with Reeve, Marianne Stanley (Indiana Fever), Nicki Collen (Atlanta Dream) and Sandy Brondello (Phoenix Mercury) being the exceptions to that rule.
Jonathan Kolb, the Liberty’s general manager, suggested at Hopkins’ introductory presser at Barclays Center that there are more dimensions to the diversity conversation that simply the head coaches.
I understand the head coaching position is very public, but there’s ways right now that we can make changes to that. Which is our basketball operations staff. Are women in equipment? Are they in analytics? Are they in management roles? There’s things that we’re looking at to help augment and I’m very excited about and I think we can be at the forefront there.
–Jonathan Kolb, Liberty general manager at Walt Hopkins’ press conference
