Steve Christilaw: Female coaches in professional sports are good fit

A new day is dawning in the sporting world.

A year ago Becky Hammon became the first woman to be a full-time paid assistant coach in the National Basketball Association. Last week she was joined by women’s basketball legend Nancy Lieberman, who was hired by George Karl to be a full-time assistant with the Sacramento Kings.

And Jen Welter was hired to be a training camp and preseason coach with the Arizona Cardinals.

A segment of the population has become completely unhinged on the prospect of women coaching men in a professional sport. But then again a segment of the population is always becoming unhinged.

It’s about time professional sports opened its eyes to an untapped resource.

Some of the best coaches I have ever known have been women – especially when it comes to basketball.

In the early days after the passage of Title IX, high schools turned to men to coach girls’ teams – in part because there wasn’t a deep pool of female candidates for those openings.

But women coaches came along quickly and their impact on the sport was immediate.

Try to put together a list of great high school coaches in the Greater Spokane League and its previous incarnations without including Linda Sheridan, the Hall of Fame volleyball and basketball coach at Shadle Park.

I was fortunate to watch the University of Washington women’s basketball program under coach Chris Gobrecht and have worked with a great many talented and inspirational coaches over the years.

I’ve even watched women coach boys’ teams and have a great deal of success – starting with Jennifer Mountain’s tenure at St. George’s, where she led the Dragons to a pair of state runner-up finishes at the State Class B tournament.

Mountain went on to be the top assistant coach under Kelly Graves at Gonzaga, her alma mater, for seven seasons before being hired as head coach at Santa Clara. After a stint as associate head coach at Portland State, Mountain was tabbed to take over at Pacific in June.

The argument against Welter working with NFL linebackers is that she can’t possibly know what it takes to teach the position: she never played linebacker in the NFL.

But if NFL experience is the determining factor of coaching success, how do you explain Vince Lombardi or Bill Belichick? Or Bill Walsh?

If that’s your standard, Mike Leach should never have gotten a job as a college football coach.

On the other hand, what each of those coaches have in common is a unique way of reaching and teaching players. They each gave an uncanny understanding of what it takes to be successful in life and applied that knowledge to a sport.

Welter not only has played the game, she played the game in men’s leagues. And on top of that experience she has a doctorate in psychology – which should come in handy as a coach.

You can’t make that argument with basketball.

Becky Hammon was a stellar point guard in the WNBA for two franchises. The New York Liberty, where she began her career as an undrafted free agent, inducted her into its Ring of Honor Sunday. She finished her career with the San Antonio Stars, and when she retired, Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich hired her as an assistant, and this summer Hammon repaid his faith in her by leading the Spurs to a summer league title in Las Vegas.

And Nancy Lieberman? Lieberman is arguably the greatest women’s basketball player in history, setting records at Old Dominion and even more during a long career in the WNBA. Her nickname was Lady Magic – a nod to Magic Johnson.

In a recent interview, Lieberman recalled a conversation with former NBA coach Pat Riley. She told Riley that she really wanted to coach basketball at the elite level.

Riley was surprised, and offered some great advice.

“Nancy, if you want something, you have to tell people what you want,” she recalled him saying.

The doors are opening for women coaches, the glass ceiling has been shattered and it’s time to tell people what you want.