Professional sports is a results-based enterprise. Players lose their positions because of injuries or poor performances and even head coaches lose their jobs.
Most recently, it was Kevin McHale of the Houston Rockets, and soon, Sacramento Kings head coach George Karl may be on his way out. Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman, which some Texans might know from her time coaching the Texas Legends, may get the job. She is currently an assistant coach for the Kings.
Stephanie Ready makes a case for Lieberman in an article for Slate and speaks to Standard about the former Texas coach’s chances.
“When you look at Nancy and what she’s done with the game of basketball, she really is a legend,” Ready says. “In her younger days, when she was a high school player that got named to USA Basketball, she wins multiple national championships at the collegiate level, she plays with men at the professional level in the minor leagues here in the States.”
Ready herself was the first woman to coach professional men’s basketball and also the first woman to become a full-time NBA game analyst.
“I’ve been on both sides of it, and it gender weren’t an issue, then there would not be so many men coaching women,” she says. “Basketball is really no different than any other industry, in this sense, people hire people that they know and trust. And I think that’s really been what’s held back the gender gap, if you will, is just people don’t have the exposure to coaches that they don’t know.”
Listen to the full interview in the player above.
