Overview: The Battle for Head Coaching Equity in the WNBA
Sports columnist Charles Hallman reports that MSR was the only outlet to question WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert about the scarcity of Black women head coaches at her state-of-the-league press conference before All-Star Weekend in Chicago. Engelbert pointed to a strong pipeline of Black women assistant coaches but deferred hiring decisions to team owners and GMs. The piece includes reaction from players, former coaches and league figures, including Minnesota Head Coach Cheryl Reeve and WNBA Players Union President Nneka
Charles Hallman/MSR
CHICAGO – MSR was the only reporter who asked about the lack of Black female head coaches this season, only the third time in league history at WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert’s ‘state of the league’ press conference before this year’s All-Star Game.
“We have been doing really well overall in our coaches ranks because we put incentives in around former WNBA players and extra coaches on the bench and things like that,” said the Commish.
To Engelbert’s point, 17 former W players are assistant coaches (Minnesota has a league-high three), and 13 are Black women.
Pressing the League for a WNBA Rooney Rule
We then asked Engelbert if a Rooney Rule-type mandate is needed, similar to the NFL’s longtime Rooney Rule that mandates that each team must interview at least one Black candidate for their head coaching and GM vacancy whenever one occurs.
“That’s a really important question and one that we continue to make sure stays top of mind for our owners, coaches and GMs,” reaffirmed Engelbert. “I realize we work with our owners, and owners and GMs make those decisions at the team level.
Ownership Demographics and the Head Coaching Gap
There are zero majority Black owners in the W. Renee Montgomery (Atlanta), Nadia Rawlinson and Anne Sempowski Ward (Chicago) are part-owners, and NBA Legend and HOF Dwyane Wade is a minority investor with Chicago. Sheila Johnson, who co-founded BET, is the first Black Charles Hallman welcomes reader responses at challman@spokesman-recorder.com.
Pullquote: woman to acquire a stake in a WNBA franchise as she is the Washington Mystics’ managing partner and team governor.
By the way, Chicago and Washington have the league’s only Black head coaches this season. Both Black males.
“Ultimately, again the owners and the GMs make those decisions” on who gets hired as head coach, Engelbert reaffirmed. “There’s not a meeting that I’m not with our owners talking about diversity in coaching and the pipeline. I think our pipeline is really, really strong.”
“When you look at 63.8% of all players identifying as Black or African-American, and you don’t have that reflected in the coaching staff, there’s an issue. There’s a problem,” Alicia Jay said last November on the CBS Sports podcast We Need To Talk Now.
Black Rosie Media Founder Erica Ayala asked, “Why does it seem like retired players, especially the Black women who make up the majority of the league, are being left behind? The absence of Black women … is jarring.”
The Unrivaled 3-on-3 league this past season had five Black women HCs: “It’s not by accident. I believe it’s intentional,” former Seattle head coach Noelle Quinn told reporters. She was fired by the Storm after the 2025 season after 6.5 years.
Unrivaled Provides Space, but the WNBA Must Do More
Teresa Weatherspoon, who was fired by Chicago after one season in 2024, has been an Unrivaled head coach for two seasons. This was Quinn’s first season.
“Nothing holds me down, and I move forward,” said T-Spoon, who was one of the two All-Star honorary general managers that drafted the players for the two squads. Her Team Spoon squad defeated Team Coop (Cynthia Cooper) in this year’s WASG.
“That’s the most important thing is moving forward and knowing who you are and what you bring, and knowing that the opportunity is for you, no one can stop them,” stressed Weatherspoon.
Holding Ownership Accountable
Minnesota Head Coach Cheryl Reeve, who coached Team Spoon, has often spoken on coaching diversity in the W: “It’s obviously important because when the league is comprised of 90 or 90-plus percent of women of color, Black women, they aspire to coach and want opportunities. There’s a lot of Black women that would love to be in the league coaching them, being head coaches in the WNBA, and they deserve that opportunity.”
Los Angeles forward and WNBA Players Union President Nneka Ogwumike added, “Of course, representation is incredibly important. I’ve been coached by a head coach that’s a Black woman (Quinn), and there’s a level of relatability. Especially knowing that most of the women in the league are Black, that adds to the experience. It adds to the performance.”
Reeve pointed out, “I think the next task force that I hope that is formed or that I get to be a part of would be just that to start to tackle whether we introduce some version of a Rooney Rule that’s improved over what we’ve learned historically with the Rule.
“We had a rule in our league that a bench coach has to be a former player. Okay, I don’t think that’s enough. So, the next step I think is we should hold ownership more accountable because ownership is a part of that big decision that’s happening.”
Ogwumike concluded, “I think that it’s just another component of us realizing that more work has to be done, and not just Black women. We have a lot of amazing former players that are entering the coaching space that are qualified, and I’m looking forward to seeing how that can change over time.”
Charles Hallman welcomes reader responses at challman@spokesman-recorder.com.
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