WNBA players are going back to campus – as women’s college basketball coaches

WNBA players are going back to campus – as women’s college basketball coaches
By Sabreena Merchant
Dec 21, 2022

In No OffseasonThe Athletic follows the paths of women’s basketball players after their WNBA seasons’ end and their travels begin. From Turkey, Israel, Italy, Czech Republic, Mexico and even here in the U.S., our reporters tell the stories of these players as they chase their dreams and try to shape the future of the WNBA.

There is a moment after every player moves to the coaching chair when they begin to realize the error of their ways. Something that they used to give a coach grief about now draws their ire when the tables are turned.

For Rachel Banham, it was pick-and-roll reads. The Minnesota Lynx guard is pretty confident in her ability to make the right play out of ball screens (she’s averaged 0.905 points per possession as a pick-and-roll handler over the past three seasons, what Synergy would classify as “very good”), but it’s something Banham and Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve have gone back and forth about during her three seasons on the team. Now a member of the University of Minnesota coaching staff, Banham can see her WNBA coach’s point while watching the young Gophers guards.

“Now watching the guards and seeing the way they do it, I’m like, oh, that’s so annoying. I get it,” Banham says. “But before, I was like, whatever, I’m doing it right. But now when I see it, I’m like, oh my gosh, yeah, that is like that. I see it now.”

If you know Banham, you can hear the sing-song way she says “I’m doing it riiiight” in your head. That works as a player, not so much as a coach, and she’s getting a crash course in the difference during her WNBA offseason. Banham is one of a few players who has gone back to her alma mater during the offseason. Dream guard Aari McDonald and Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu are working this winter at Arizona and Oregon, respectively; and Liberty forward Nyara Sabally also has joined a former Oregon assistant coach at Sacramento State. Banham is prepping for the future during her offseason, while also picking up some tricks that can help her when the 2023 WNBA season tips off.


The coaching pathway for players isn’t a new one. Of the 361 head coaches in NCAA Division I, 33 of them are former WNBA players. Half of the 12 WNBA coaches are also former players, and even more retired players fill out the assistant ranks at both levels. Double-dipping is less common, though.

The most famous example of a WNBA player simultaneously coaching in the college ranks is Dawn Staley, who had the head job at Temple while in the middle of her playing career. As in most cases, Staley is an anomaly, but other players followed that path to universities to become assistants. Staley became the Temple head coach in 2000; three years later, 11 players were spending their offseasons back on campuses, a list that included Connecticut Sun head coach Stephanie White, Phoenix Mercury head coach Vanessa Nygaard and Lynx assistant Katie Smith. Getting that early exposure apparently proved useful.

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WNBA players have been searching for alternatives to overseas play since the league’s inception. International offseason competition pays well and keeps players sharp, but it can also be physically wearing and difficult personally.

For someone like Banham who has coached at the high school level and loves running camps and clinics, coaching in the offseason is an obvious choice. But even for those who don’t have an interest in coaching, it’s hard to turn down an opportunity to stay home, make some money and work — especially when dealing with an injury, as was the case when White and Smith first took the plunge. It’s also good for the university to market a high-profile player, alum or not, joining their program.

go-deeper

GO DEEPER

The offseason is a grind for WNBA players who compete overseas. More are deciding to stay home

White says she was approached by the Ball State coaching staff because they were season-ticket holders while she was playing for the Indiana Fever. Smith was recovering from a knee scope and wanted to get her master’s at Ohio State. McDonald had been pestered for a full year by her head coach, Adia Barnes, to join her staff before she took the Arizona job. When Sky star Kahleah Copper was an assistant at Purdue Northwest for the 2020-21 season, she says head coach Courtney Locke (a fellow Rutgers alum) reached out to her on social media, and Copper thought it was a joke at first.

Regardless of how they got their starts, the totality of the college coaching experience provides something for everyone.

In a press release, Ionescu said, “Part of my heart remains in Eugene,” which is what inspires her to help recreate her experience for new Ducks players as the director of athletic culture. A fellow Pac-12 alum, McDonald similarly has pride in her university. She wants to see Arizona get back to the level of success the Wildcats had when she was on the team and they advanced to the national title game. Recruiting the best talent in the country as the director of recruiting operations is her way of contributing, while also utilizing the program’s resources to prepare for her Dream season.

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“I (played) here for three-plus years, I know Coach Adia, I know the system very well and so I think I’m very relatable with the prospects that they’re recruiting,” McDonald says. “I want to help this team get back to the national stage. So I just thought it was in my best interest to come here, and also just having the access, just the resources to work out, use the gym, use the nutritionist. I thought it was really good for me, and it has benefited both of us.”

Smith mostly liked being around the program. Her job consisted of matching names to envelopes and putting together highlights when the Buckeyes sent out recruiting letters, giving her a behind-the-scenes look at the grunt work that comes with being a college coach. But she also got to play on the practice squad, which she seemed to revel in more given her mindset as a professional athlete at the time.

“We used to try to just beat up on them and knock down shots,” Smith says. “Coach (Jim) Foster would use us as examples and get mad at them for not guarding us close enough. It was a lot of fun being around him, one of the best in the business. The team dynamic is always, like when you have a good group, it’s a lot of fun.”

Banham likes the idea of growing the game, especially in her community. Growing up in Minnesota, it’s extra meaningful to her to invest in the basketball development of girls in the area, both the ones on her team and the younger ones who look up to them.

For now, the Gophers look up to her, and it’s a responsibility she takes seriously with the appropriate dose of levity. When she suits up on the practice squad, she claims she’s too awkward to trash-talk the Minnesota players, even though she’s absolutely “giving them buckets” to help them get better. She’s also a sounding board when the players need to get something off their chest; Banham never played for Whalen directly, but she does play for Whalen’s mentor Reeve and acknowledges that it’s a familiar experience.

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“I actually genuinely enjoy just being around young women and great people and just being able to be a support system for them,” Banham says. “Whatever they need, if they need to vent if – because I’ve been through it, so I completely understand what it’s like. So it’s kind of fun to be someone who’s been through it, but also now I’m on the other side of it. So I can really be a good bridge between, hey, we need to get this done, but I also understand how you’re feeling where you’re coming from. So the connection piece is really really fun for me, just building those relationships and hopefully being able to be there for them down the road, beyond basketball. They always have somebody they can lean on.”

McDonald thinks it’s especially important for younger players to have role models who haven’t just been in their shoes, but who are actively living out the futures they aspire to. The sisterhood of WNBA players isn’t that large and having access to one on a daily basis is invaluable for players who are preparing for that journey.

“We have these young girls coming up and they want to be pros,” McDonald says. “So just us mentoring them, I think that’s something that the league needs and I think that’s something also that the colleges need.”

Says Smith: “The best way to learn what it’s really like is from the people that have done this. What a role model, what a presence that they’ll have. They just have a different connection. They’ll be able to talk to them different. They’ll be able to share their experiences. … Kudos to the coaches for bringing them along and having them, making space for Sabrina and all of them, because it’s helpful. It’s what it should be. It’s great for the university, it’s great for the players, and it’s great for the pro players as well.”

It also might be great for their WNBA coaches. As Banham learned, she has more empathy for Reeve than when she first started at Minnesota, and her fellow WNBA players might be discovering new ways to relate to their pro coaches. Copper got a crash course in drawing up scouting reports, which helped her see the game differently. White says working for Ball State, she realized how selfish she had been in her perspective of the game. Coaching was the first time she had thought about rotations, fatigue, time and score, substitutions, and so many other details that she could then discuss with the Fever staff her next season. Smith realized the “knucklehead stuff” she had done as a player and saw if she had just listened more, slowed down, and taken in a few lessons, she could have been a much better player — a startling admission for a Hall of Famer.


The path back to campus was more common in the early 2000s when overseas salaries weren’t comparable to what they are now. Foregoing that second income was less of a financial sacrifice, motivating players like White and Smith to dive into something they weren’t remotely prepared for, especially if that came with a gym and live bodies they could practice with.

Nowadays, players want to be certain about what they’re doing to make it worthwhile. McDonald tried going overseas last year when Barnes first offered her the job and only came to Arizona after ruling out the international option. Natisha Hiedeman began the offseason on the Penn State staff but is now playing in Israel. Copper worked as a coach for one year and then decided to take the WNBA player marketing deal this offseason.

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The job of a coach, or even a staffer who isn’t allowed to directly work with players every day due to NCAA restrictions, isn’t for everyone.

“Coaching is a lot of work, and I think that’s the other thing that you don’t realize as a player,” White says. “We might be watching film, but it’s not in the same way that coaches are watching film and preparing your team and in the meetings and all those other things. And then when you go to the other side and you’re constantly meeting about practice, meeting about players and how can we develop, how can we enhance? How can we conserve some older players or players who have been injured? Now, how do we game prep, what advantages can we have against this opponent? How do we take away their advantages?

“We don’t just watch two or three games, we’re watching every game, and we’re watching time and score situations just as much as we’re watching offenses and defenses, what are teams doing after free throws, what are teams doing out of timeouts, what are teams doing end the shot clock, what are teams doing last three minutes of the game. What are their go-tos in crunch time when they advance the ball? I mean all of these things that you don’t necessarily think about as a player because you go to work and you go home and you go on with your life, and coaching is really eat, sleep, breathe. How do you position yourself to be successful and your team to be successful every single day? And so you didn’t realize that.”

It was all worth it for White, who says she immediately felt at home on the practice court and has been coaching ever since, getting the same rush of adrenaline from the sideline that she felt on the court. Banham appears to be headed in the same direction, which perhaps shouldn’t be surprising because point guards go into coaching more often than any other position.

Banham says her “wheels have been turning” all season, and she can’t wait to be on the sideline in a real way, not just as the director of quality control. She relishes the days when one of the assistants is out of the office because she gets to step in and actually instruct during practice, elevating her role from “encourager” to full-on coach. Banham has known for a while that she loves kids, connecting with people, and helping them learn skills; it was a dream come true not only for Whalen to recognize that and give her the job but also for the role to meet her expectations 100 percent.

Until she’s finally in that head chair, she is getting the full gamut of her coaching education. That means helping with scouts, drawing up other team’s plays, keeping practice stats, filling up water bottles, carrying bags, and essentially whatever else needs to be done. She’s also on the receiving end of some continuous ribbing about the peculiar moniker she carries.

“The girls love to make fun of my title as well, like, ‘Great quality control,'” Banham says. “Every time I do one simple task, they’re like, wow, the quality around here is just something else. I’m like, thank you, guys. Thank you.”

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It’s a sentiment Banham can now share with Reeve after years of unwittingly antagonizing her, and a small price to pay for the experience that may one day really put them in the same shoes.

The “No Offseason” series is part of a partnership with Google Pixel. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.

(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Photo of Rachel Banham: University of Minnesota Athletics)

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Sabreena Merchant

Sabreena Merchant is a women's basketball Staff Writer for The Athletic. She previously covered the WNBA and NBA for SB Nation. Sabreena is an alum of Duke University, where she wrote for the independent student newspaper, The Chronicle. She is based in Los Angeles. Follow Sabreena on Twitter @sabreenajm