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The great coaching debate
Posted: Wednesday May 31, 2000 03:15 PM
LOS ANGELES -- Whenever women are involved in athletics, one question always seems to be asked. "Who should be coaching them?" Men, women, or both? Now, a recent trend in the WNBA has some observers asking that question. Of the 16 head coaches, nine are men. In the first year, Houston's Van Chancellor was the only male head coach. Of the male coaches, only four -- Chancellor, Cleveland's Dan Hughes , Utah's Fred Williams and Minnesota's Brian Agler -- had previous head coaching experience with women prior to being named head WNBA coaches. The others -- Los Angeles' Michael Cooper , Miami's Ron Rothstein , New York's Richie Adubato , Sacramento's Sonny Allen , and Charlotte's T.R. Dunn -- have NBA coaching or playing experience. Cooper, Dunn and Allen have experience in the WNBA as assistant coaches. The WNBA requires that at least one coach on each staff have experience in coaching women's basketball, but the trend of hiring men as head coaches hasn't gone unnoticed. "My gripe has never been about men being in women's sports, it has been about guys all of a sudden being in women's sports," Detroit coach Nancy Lieberman-Cline said. "But that is the reality at this point. We'd like to see a good balance where women get a lot of the opportunities," she said. "As long as we strike a balance, I will be OK. If this thing goes predominantly men, that would be very disheartening for me." Lieberman-Cline took it as a good sign that three of the expansion teams' coaches are women. She also admitted some may think she is a hypocrite, since she has two males on her staff. She defended her selections based on her previous coaching relationships with her assistants, Greg Williams and Steve Smith . More than anything, previous coaching relationships may be why there is more and more of an NBA influence in the WNBA rather than a college flavor since the two leagues are so closely related in the front offices. "How can you fight that when you have known each other for so long," Lieberman-Cline said. "I think we are in that type of business. It is how you work together." Still, many wonder, including WNBA President Val Ackerman , when some of the big-name college coaches, such as Stanford's Tara VanDerveer , Connecticut's Geno Auriemma or Tennessee's Pat Summitt , will join the league. "I know that many, many of them have already been approached by our teams," Ackerman said. "Many of them multiple times by multiple teams, and it seems that right now quite a few just aren't ready to make that career jump." One of those previously approached is VanDerveer, the coach of the 1996 gold-medal winning Olympic team. VanDerveer believes the WNBA is much more related to the NBA than college, but also cited money as one of the reasons more well-known coaches haven't joined the league. The premier college coaches pull in six-figure salaries, and often have other sources of income with sponsors and TV and radio shows. WNBA simply can't beat those deals, or at least not enough to attract the long-time coaches. "I've been here at Stanford for 15 years and you have coaches like Andy Landers who has been at Georgia for more than 20," said VanDerveer, who recently spent a week watching Minnesota's training camp. Her sister Heidi is an assistant for the Lynx. "It would take a very special opportunity to attract coaches like us, although they are great jobs and players to work with. I definitely keep my options open, but it would have to take a great opportunity."
There is a differenceRothstein, coach of the Miami Sol, said so far almost all the differences between coaching in the WNBA to the NBA are positive. "The willingness of the players to give of themselves and to sacrifice for the good of the team has been just unbelievably positive," he said. "From a technical standpoint, one of the biggest differences between men's and women's basketball is spacing at the offensive end. You get more clusters in the women's game than you do in the men's. I think that is because the range is not quite the same in the women's game as in the men's game."
Couldn't be bothered in PhoenixPhoenix coach Cheryl Miller hasn't exactly endeared herself to the media that covers the WNBA, more often than not being uncooperative at best. Her mood didn't seem much better in the WNBA coaches' conference call, as Miller started off her opening statements saying "Last season we sucked, this season we should be pretty decent." Miller's conference call was the shortest of all coaches, thanks to the several one to five word answers she offered.
Around the leagueMinnesota's Katie Smith blames part of her disappointing season last year, in which she averaged 11.7 points, on the knee injury she suffered the previous November...Cleveland's Suzie McConnell Serio sprained her foot in practice, but it won't affect her season. She missed much of last year with foot problems, undergoing surgery in December to stabilize a broken bone with a plate...Chancellor used 10 players in the Comets' season opening win over New York. Using that many players is unusual for the Comets, who, believe it or not, don't have a very deep bench... Rankica Sarenac , a 6-foot-5 center from Slovenia, made Phoenix's final roster even though she was in training camp less than five days.
Lya Wodraska is a sports writer for the Salt Lake Tribune.
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