The WNBA is 64% to 70% Black, yet there is not a single Black female head coach in the league this season.
There are only three Black general managers, all women: Ohemaa Nyania (Golden State), Monica Wright Rogers (Toronto) and Morgan Tuck (Connecticut). Only Tyler Marsh in Chicago and Sydney Johnson in Washington, both in their second year as WNBA head coaches, are the league’s only Black head coaches this summer.
Why isn’t this talked about more, rather than every Caitlin Clark move?
Consider the diminishing returns: Only 22 Black women have been hired as WNBA head coaches in the league’s 30-year history. Half of the then-12-team league had Black head coaches in 2022. And before she was fired after last season, Noelle Quinn held the league record as the longest-tenured Black female head coach. Seattle hired her in 2021.
“I think it was a great honor to lead this team and represent Black women,” Quinn told me last May. I have known her since she was drafted by Minnesota fourth overall in 2007 and have spoken with her regularly throughout her playing career and her transition to coaching, first as an assistant and then as head coach.
Quinn led Seattle to the first-ever Commissioner’s Cup in 2021, her first season as head coach, making her the first Black head coach to win the in-season tournament.
“I think representation matters,” said Quinn, who coached earlier this year in Unrivaled.
This season marks only the third time in WNBA history that there are no Black female head coaches. Only twice since The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport began publishing racial and gender report cards on the league in 2004 have there been so few. 2005 and 2006 each had only two in successive seasons.
“They never wanted Black women to be head coaches or GMs. They only want to use them as players,” wrote one fan responding to a J.R. Gamble piece on The Shadow League last September, shortly after Quinn’s departure from Seattle.
A Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder accounting of WNBA rosters at the start of the season found Las Vegas (12), Connecticut (11) and Chicago (10) are the only clubs with double-digit Black players. Minnesota and Golden State are tied for fourth with nine each.
When told of their standing, Chicago Sky teammates Natasha Cloud and Rachel Banham both expressed pride.
“I didn’t know that. That’s actually really dope,” Cloud said.
“Interesting,” Banham added.
Coach Marsh acknowledged he was also unaware. “I’m extremely proud of that,” he said. “I think the more representation we can have as players, as staff, as front office, coaching-wise… the better.”
On what it means to be a Black coach in the league, Marsh added: “I think there’s a ton of talented African American players and coaches that don’t always have the opportunity, and so it’s part of the reason why I approach this job in a way that it’s not just a job, it’s a responsibility. It’s a responsibility that I try to uphold each day for my players. It’s what keeps me going. I know what I represent and who I represent and why I work and live for.”
On his all-Black coaching staff, Marsh said: “I think our staff feels the same, and I appreciate you bringing that up because it does mean a lot.”
FINALLY…
Each PWHL club can protect three players in the league’s first phase of the Expansion Roster Distribution Process. Vancouver’s Sophie Jaques and Sarah Nurse, two of the league’s three Black players, made the first phase. The third Black player, Mikyla Grant-Mentis, did not make Seattle’s protected list.
Charles Hallman welcomes reader responses at challman@spokesman-recorder.com.
Copyright © Charles Hallman