March Madness debate: When will a woman coach a Division I men's basketball team?

CLEVELAND — If Dawn Staley had pursued a rare opportunity in 2002, the unfulfilled breakthrough of a woman coaching a men’s Division I college basketball team for a full season might be long past.

Coaches and broadcasters at the Women’s Final Four at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse believe that barrier will soon fall, even though some question leaving the women’s game at the height of its popularity.

Becoming the first man or woman to earn Naismith Coach of the Year in three consecutive seasons on Wednesday, South Carolina’s Staley could have been that trailblazer.

Playing in the WNBA during the summer, Staley was two years into her first job directing the Temple University women's team in her native Philadelphia when athletic director Dave O’Brien departed for Northeastern.

“He had a men’s opening and did reach out and see if I had some interest,” Staley said Thursday of the late O’Brien.

The timing wasn’t right, Staley said, even though Temple had won its first Atlantic-10 tournament title and made the first of what would be six NCAA appearances in her eight years.

“When I get into a groove in being at a place, I’m comfortable,” Staley said. “I was just trying to finish the job, just trying to meet the goal that was set. We didn’t meet the goal yet, so I didn’t want to leave.”

Winning two national titles in five previous Final Four appearances at South Carolina, Staley thinks someone will take the leap on a similar inquiry. But it won’t be her.

“No, too old right now,” said Staley, 53. “I think anytime that you’re good you’re going to create options for yourself. If I said I’d be interested in coaching a men’s team, I think there would be some feelers. I think there’s some people out there that would make the call to see how interested I would be. I don’t really put myself out there like that. Women’s coaches should put themselves out there like that if they have any interest in it.”

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The scenario is not totally unprecedented. In 2003, Teresa Phillips became the first woman to coach a Division I men’s basketball team at Tennessee State, but she held the post for just one game. Serving as athletic director, she had fired coach Nolan Richardson and interim Hosea Lewis was suspended for that game.

"That would probably still go down as my lowest time in my career at Tennessee State," Phillips told The Tennessean in 2014. "That was a decision that I didn't think very much of; I didn't think a big deal would be made of it, and all of a sudden it was a big deal. It was not intended to make history."

ESPN analyst Rebecca Lobo thinks history will be made, with a caveat.

“I think you’ll probably see a woman coaching an NBA team before you’ll see one coaching a D1 men’s team,” Lobo said. “The NBA has been much more welcoming to women in the coaching ranks. I don’t know what the numbers are right now, but a couple years ago there was one female assistant in all of D1 men’s basketball, but there were double digits on NBA staffs. I would imagine we’ll see it at some point, but I think we’ll see it first in the NBA.”

In the NBA this season, there are five female assistants — Mery Andrade (Toronto), Jenny Boucek (Indiana), Brittni Donaldson (Atlanta), Sidney Dobner (Milwaukee) and Sonia Raman (Memphis). On Tuesday, Lindsey Harding of the Stockton Kings was named G league coach of the year. USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb spent 2019-21 as a Cavs assistant.

Former San Antonio Spurs assistant Becky Hammon could have been the coach Lobo had in mind. Rebuffed several times by the NBA, including by the Milwaukee Bucks in 2018, Hammon jumped to the WNBA and has won back-to-back championships with the Las Vegas Aces.

ESPN sideline reporter Holly Rowe has covered women’s basketball for 30 years and believes strongly in Hammon. But she also sees women qualified to coach men’s Division I college teams.

“I think it’s coming sooner rather than later,” Rowe said. “We’re not there yet, but I feel like gender shouldn’t matter to your job performance. I think that finally maybe some of the executives are waking up. There’s good coaches at every level.”

Pat Summitt, who died in 2016 at age 64, drew support for such a jump when she became the winningest coach in major college basketball. In her 38 years at the University of Tennessee, she won eight national titles and 1,098 games and made an unprecedented 31 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances.

“She was doing so well, people wondered why wouldn’t she take over the Tennessee men’s coaching job because they were never good when she was there for a long time,” Rowe recalled. “I loved her comment. She said, ‘I don’t see that as a step up.’ I think that’s a really healthy way to look at things. If you love women’s basketball, that’s where you should be.

“In that era, she thought the job she had was the best job out there, and she was right. I do think there’s a lot of capable women who are coaches and they should coach at the highest level. If that’s a men’s Division I team, so be it.”

Ohio basketball legend Katie Smith, 49, starting her fifth season on the bench of the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx, her third as associate head coach and her 11th as a league assistant, sees both sides.

“Men have two paths in coaching, men’s and women’s. For us it would be awesome to have both,” Smith, the former Ohio State star, said by phone. “That isn’t the case at the moment.”

But Smith looks at Staley, Summitt and her boss, Cheryl Reeve, the Lynx head coach and director of basketball operations, and is torn.

“You want the best ones to stay in the women’s game, too,” Smith said. “Part of me is like, ‘No. Why would we go to the men’s game?’ The women’s game right now for me is way more exciting, way more passionate … it’s like the skill, the athleticism I enjoy. That’s what I’m watching.”

ESPN analyst Carolyn Peck got her start in coaching under Summitt at Tennessee and became the first Black head coach to win a women’s basketball national title at Purdue in 1999. She also coached at Florida and was the first head coach-general manager of the WNBA’s Orlando Miracle.

Peck doesn’t understand why a woman won’t someday accept a men’s job.

“The question is going to be, ‘What woman would want to when you look at where the women’s game is now,” Peck said. “It used to be, the attraction may have been for some if you wanted to make a lot of money, you had to go coach at the men’s level. Now when you look at the ratings on TV, the packed attendance, I think you’re going to have more men come coach women. The possibility if ADs are smart, you look at a coach because they’re a coach, not because what sex they are.

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“Now for the women to have the choice of coaching either is rising to the point to where men have always had it.”

Peck offered a scenario that some female coaches might revel in.

“To have the option and to turn it down would be great,” Peck said. “For ADs to recognize the talent of the women that are coaching in the women’s game would be a compliment. Look at what Lisa Bluder has done at Iowa and what Dawn has done, Cori Close at UCLA, Lindsay Gottlieb at USC. Women are demonstrating that they can coach the game.

"What all coaches have to do, you have to adjust to the talent that you have. It doesn’t matter if it’s male or female. You have to have the strategy for the game, get the best out of your players. One of the reasons [for] the parity in women’s basketball is not only that there’s talent, but the caliber of coaches. They’ve progressed with the game.”

Devotees of women’s basketball are aware of the quality on the sideline. But Smith acknowledged that those swept up in the mania surrounding Iowa’s Caitlin Clark might need some convincing.

“Somebody’s going to have to try to change the perspective on it. One person I don’t think is going to do it,” Smith said. “It has to be a real shift and it has to continue. There has to be people who think outside the box and hire people who are qualified and capable whether they’re a man or a woman.”

ESPN analyst/reporter Andraya Carter, one of the last players to sign with Summitt at Tennessee before injuries cut short her career, said she believes men’s Division I basketball will see a woman coach.

“I think there are women that are more than capable of doing that. It will just be when the opportunity comes,” Carter said. “Whoever gets it will crush it and will pave the way for other women.”

Carter saw another bonus.

“Visibility is such a big deal. As soon as there’s a woman coaching a men’s team, there are going to be little girls who see that and at least think it’s possible,” Carter said. “Or just coaching at a high level: ‘If she can coach NBA, I can coach anywhere I want.’”

As much as Rowe thinks the revolution Staley might have sparked in 2002 will happen, Rowe doesn’t know if the job will be as fulfilling for the trailblazer and those who follow.

“It doesn’t always mean that the grass is greener on that side,” Rowe said. “I think the women’s basketball grass is pretty damn green right now.”

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: A matter of time before a woman coaches Division I men's basketball?