By Morris Phillips

BERKELEY, CA–How many black women coaches do you know? How many black women coaches did you play for?

Surprisingly, black women coaches are asking themselves these questions.

Like 83 streaking meteors, black women basketball coaches at the Division I level travel a lonely path, seeking success at the highest levels of their profession while often having to forgo family, relationships and time to themselves. The payoffs for success are enormous, and the sacrifices are just as big.

And unfortunately, the second chances are few.

“A lot of Black coaches got opportunities during that time,” said Dawn Staley of a period around 2007 when Jolette Law was hired to coach Illinois. “And then probably three, four years later, 75% of them weren’t head coaches anymore, and they don’t get recycled like other coaches. So I think now Black coaches are more prepared because they have had to be prepared.”

After Staley’s South Carolina Gamecocks captured the 2017 National Championship, the coach who is the absolute vanguard for the sport and her people, sent pieces of the celebratory basketball net that was cut down after the final victory over Mississippi State to all 70 black women head coaches that were then in place at the Division I level. The gesture received a great deal of attention, as did Staley’s measured words in explaining her reasoning for distributing the net.

“I pick ALL of you to receive this piece of our 2017 National Championship net in the hope that making our goal tangible will inspire you, as it did me, to keep pushing forward and us all to keep supporting each other in our journeys,” Staley wrote to each of the recipients.

The gesture was actually started by Carolyn Peck, the first black women to win a national title in basketball at Purdue in 1999. She sent a piece of her net to Staley in 2015 with the stipulation that Staley continue the gesture when she won. 70 coaches received a piece of the net in 2017. Now seven years later, there are 83 black women’s coaches as their numbers continue to grow.

Staley’s story is best known, but 82 other stories deserve to be told. Would all that have been possible without the South Carolina’s coach special touch? Maybe not.

“She’s so great and gracious,” Syracuse coach Felecia Legette-Jack said. “You call her, and you think you’re the most special person in the world. She does it with everybody.”

California’s Charmin Smith had a story to tell, and she created a platform from which to tell it. The Raising the B.A.R. Invitational is an annual tournament that features four teams coached by black women, and was started by Smith. Basketball, Activism and Representation are the words of the tournament title’s acronym, and this time, in the fourth year of the tournament, a fund-raising component has been added with each participating team raising money for a local charity.

Smith’s mission is simple, but important: be heard, say what’s important, and create change.

“In my career there have been times where I felt like they don’t want me to speak my mind,” Smith said. “They don’t want to hear what I say. But I am not one of those black women, I guess. I can’t be silent on the issues that affect me and affect my student athletes.”

Smith didn’t know if she wanted to coach. At a standstill following her WNBA career, her college coach, the legendary Tara VanDerveer suggested she try it. Smith resisted but accepted a job interview with the Boston College women’s basketball program that led to her first coaching job.

Xavier coach Billi Chambers wasn’t a transcendent player at Hofstra, but she knew she could be special as a coach. Following her college career, she jumped into the coaching profession immediately, and then into her first head coaching job at Iona, one that lasted 10 years. She wasn’t looking for a new challenge or wanting to uproot her family from Long Island New York, but she knew she wanted one when Xavier came calling after their program fell to 7-23 in the 2022-23 season.

“During the interview, I told myself, I can sell this place,” she said after walking into the Cintas Center, the Xavier on-campus arena.

Chambers decided to forgo 10 years of success for a bigger school, a bigger conference, and a bunch of uncertainty regarding a program that had fallen on rough times. Coaching against Geno Auriemma and UConn didn’t deter her either.

“Who doesn’t want to compete against the best?” she thought.

Diane Richardson knew that coaching and the coaches that mentored her changed her life from humble beginnings in Washington D.C. to a wildly successful career in the financial services field. But at the peak of her success, the coaching bug hit, and she assumed a head coaching job of an AAU program in Maryland. That led to Richardson leaving the financial field, coaching full-time, and eventually accepting an opportunity to be the head coach at Towson University.

Like Chambers, Richardson jumped when a bigger opportunity came from Temple University in Philadelphia, where their proud program had fallen on rough times, ironically after Dawn Staley departed to coach South Carolina. Having to hit the floor initially with seven players new to the Temple program, and little to hang their collective hats on other than gritty defense, didn’t slow Richardson. She simply accepted the challenge, and subsequently hit the recruiting trail to increase the talent level of her team.

Now in year two, Richardson is starting to see results. Her Owls have won 5 of their last 8, and should be a factor in the American Athletic Conference title chase.

“We are leading with our defense,” Richardson declared.