Gray-Miller transitions from coaching to broadcasting

Another View

Second of two parts

Whenever a coach gets fired, what often gets lost is the fact that the assistants on the staff are also shown the door. Therefore, when Minnesota let Lindsay Whalen go in March, the former associate head coach Shimmy Gray-Miller and her fellow assistants were also suddenly out of work.

With nearly 25 years of coaching experience, Gray-Miller has coached at all five of the Power Five conferences, certainly qualifying as a coaching lifer. But now she has reached both a personal and a career crossroads.

“When everything happened with Lindsay getting fired, I said, what’s next? I knew that I did not want to get a quote-unquote ‘real job,’” admitted Gray-Miller, speaking candidly from her home in Chicago. “I knew I didn’t want to coach anymore.”

She pointed out that it’s been a whirlwind 12 months beginning last summer. “I got engaged last year. Got my master’s. Got a promotion. My mother went into hospice. Got fired. Planned a wedding. Planned a funeral. When everything went down [after Whalen’s firing],” continued Gray-Miller, “I was really scared of the uncertainty.  

“I got my first full-time job right out of college. I’ll be 51 in November. I’ve worked full-time for 30 years,” she said proudly.

Gray-Miller was hired by Minnesota in May 2021. “Minnesota was going to be my last coaching job. I’ve said that from the get-go,” she admitted. “I was not going to coach anywhere after Minnesota.”

Yet, giving up something she dearly loves isn’t easy. “My fiancé is a broadcaster. So her and I watch a lot of games together,” said Gray-Miller. “She’ll say, ‘You should be a broadcaster.’”

That suggestion eventually became a reality as Gray-Miller found a broadcasting internship at the Big Ten Network. “I applied—the only qualifications were that you had to have played a sport in the Big Ten [she was a three-time letter-winner and team captain at Michigan in the 1990s] and that you didn’t have any eligibility. I checked both those boxes.

“I did an interview and I got it,” said Gray-Miller. She was one of six applicants and the oldest as well, she noted. “It was such an incredible experience to work with network producers and writers and directors. We got a ton of feedback. It was just a really intensive, hands-on experience and I loved it.”

That internship led to her working several Chicago Sky telecasts this season. “I have five more games coming up in August and September,” said Gray-Miller, adding that she felt herself getting better with each game.

“There’s two things I miss about coaching,” she said. “I miss working with the players and being on the court in practices, or one-on-one sessions working with the players. I miss that… I miss watching film, game planning, the prep, the scheming, the X’s and O’s. So, the broadcasting piece checks that box.”

Also, this summer Gray-Miller worked as a volunteer coach with a local middle school boys basketball program in Chicago. And, in a few weeks, Gray-Miller will be getting married.  

“I’m just really excited,” she said. “I’m so excited for what’s next.  I just don’t know for sure what that is, but I know it’s going to be something great and I’m excited for it.”