Veteran coach calls her varied career ‘a blessing’

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Charlene Thomas-Swinson has been a coach since completing a stellar playing career at Auburn (1983-87). She has been both a head coach twice and an assistant coach at three different schools, including her alma mater.

Now in her third year as a Las Vegas Aces assistant coach—Thomas-Swinson’s first two seasons resulted in back-to-back WNBA championships and the 2022 Commissioner’s Cup title—the veteran coach and I chatted after a shootaround before the May 29 Aces-Lynx contest. 

“Coaching found me, I didn’t find it,” admitted Thomas-Swinson. “I had an opportunity to go to Germany or Belgium and play. My dad talked me out of it. He convinced me that I could make just as much money or more at home” with the business management degree she earned at Auburn, she recalled. 

She therefore took her father’s advice and worked in the corporate world for three years. But also, at the same time, a coaching opening emerged. “There was a Division III school not far from my parents’ home. I used to work out [there] in the offseason. 

“The athlete director at the time offered me an opportunity as an assistant coach that I did part time while I worked full time in the business world. So, I did that for three years.”

Thomas-Swinson began her collegiate coaching career at Columbia Union (MD) College.  Then her old college coach came calling.  

“Joe Ciampi found out” she was coaching, continued Thomas-Swinson. He said, “OK, if you’re really serious about this thing I’ve got a full-time job if you think you want to take it on,” according to the coach. “Not many people have an opportunity to go back to their alma mater, and that’s what I was able to do.

“And the rest is history. I’ve been stuck in coaching ever since,” said a smiling Thomas-Swinson.

After four years at Auburn, Thomas-Swinson took over as St. John’s head coach (1996-99). During that time, she also was a USA Basketball assistant coach for two teams, the 1998 USA Select Team and the 1999 USA National Team. 

Then came an opportunity to join the newly formed WNBA that was too much to pass up. Thomas-Swinson joined Carolyn Peck in Orlando, where Peck was the franchise’s first Black HC/GM. 

Peck was the first Black woman to win a national championship at Purdue in 1999. “It was definitely an honor to be able to work for her,” said the coach of Peck. 

After Orlando (1999-2002), Thomas-Swinson also joined Peck as an assistant at Florida (2002-05), then became a head coach at Tulsa (2009-11) where she won the 2006 C-USA regular season and tournament titles, as well as coach of the year. Her coaching stints have also included Indiana (2012-14) and LSU (2015- 21) under then-HC Nikki Fargus, now current Las Vegas president. 

Las Vegas became the first WNBA champion in league history led by a Black female team president (Fargus) and Black female GM (Natalie Williams). 

All told, Thomas-Swinson has over two decades of combined pro and collegiate coaching experience, along with being married and a mother of two children. She has worked for her college coach, three Black female head coaches—Peck at Orlando and Florida, Felisha  Leggett-Jack at Indiana, and Fargus at LSU—and two Black female front office execs.

“It’s been a blessing,” said Thomas-Swinson of her career. “We’re all Black… More importantly, it makes you have a little bit better feeling about yourself when you can walk into an establishment knowing that there is an opportunity where leadership is looking like you.”