She wasn’t the head coach, but it was Tasha Brown’s voice that rang loud and clear and got the players’ full attention as she implored the nation’s number-one women’s college basketball team to do better on defense.
Once a head coach herself, Brown is in her fifth season as UCLA assistant coach. We chatted afterwards at the school’s practice facility during our recent trip to Los Angeles. The Bruins then were preparing to play Minnesota in a couple of days.
“We have the freedom to be as vocal as we want to be, stop practice when we want to, administer accountability if we need to, typically on the defensive side of the ball,” said Brown proudly. “You’ll hear me being the most vocal.”
“All of our assistant coaches we have are very active in practice,” continued Brown. “The one thing about Coach Cori [Close] is that she doesn’t have an ego. She has hired great teachers, great coaches, and she wants us to head coach our areas,” noted the veteran coach.
Brown got her coaching start at her alma mater St. Ambrose (Iowa) in 1997, where she played college basketball and earned a degree in mathematics. She also played two of her four years of college hoops at Illinois Central College, then went to Southwest Missouri State for a season before finishing up her career at St. Ambrose.
She has amassed over two decades of coaching experience, including four seasons as Western Michigan head coach, and assistant stints at Rice, Cincinnati, Wisconsin, UC-Santa Barbera, Bradley, Dayton, and now at UCLA.
When asked how it feels to be coaching a number-one team that at the time was undefeated, she said, “You know that doesn’t happen for very many people in your career. It is amazing to be able to be a part of a number-one team.
“I think the only thing that overshadows that is the fact that we just have some great young women in this program,” she pointed out.
Brown and Associate Head Coach Shannon Perry-LeBeauf are the only Black women on the Bruins coaching staff.
“I love the game,” Brown admitted, “and I’ve always kind of viewed myself as a teacher. So, coming out of college, I want to coach. I want to be able to impact lives the same way that my coaches impacted mine, and it still allows me my competitive nature and love for the game to still be connected.
“Furthermore, being a Black female coaching women is both a privilege and an honored responsibility,” said Brown.
“I’ve been blessed to be able to say that this is not just a job,” she pointed out. “This is my purpose, and I recognize the fact that I am a Black coach in a profession… The responsibility that I feel not only to all the players, but certainly to the African American players, is a big one, to make sure that I’m equipping them and mentoring for what next, being someone that they could look at and emulate.
“If you talk to Shannon, that’s going to be hers as well. I’ve taken a huge responsibility to make sure that I’m sort of taking the baton from their parents and helping finish the job and equip [the players] for the next phase of life. That’s bigger than basketball, and that’s my mentality.
“We understand the weight of that,” said Brown. “The reality of it is in this profession sometimes with Black coaches, if you don’t succeed, you’re not often given another chance.
“So, we understand that for the ones coming up behind us, we need to succeed.”
Charles Hallman welcomes reader comments to challman@spokesman-recorder.com.