January 14, 2025 • 41 mins
Basketball analyst and former Notre Dame hoops head coach Muffet McGraw joins Sarah to talk about the incredible job her successor Niele Ivey is doing with the program, Hannah Hidalgo’s case for National Player of the Year, the pushback surrounding a post Hidalgo shared on social media last summer, and why the coaching landscape still doesn’t pass the gender bias test. Plus, Team Canada soccer is shaking things up, the coldest pot of beans you ever saw, and some excellent reading recs.
-
Watch Muffet McGraw’s viral comments on women in leadership here
-
Read Emily Jo Roberts’ essay on investing in women coaches here
-
Read Linda Lu and Chantal Hildebrand’s co-leadership essay here
-
Leave us a voicemail at 872-204-5070 or send us a note at goodgame@wondermedianetwork.com
-
Follow Sarah on social! Bluesky: @sarahspain.bsky.social Instagram: @Spain2323
-
Follow producer Misha Jones! Bluesky: @mishthejrnalist.bsky.social Instagram: @mishthejrnalist TikTok: @mishthejrnalist
-
Follow producer Alex Azzi! Bluesky: @byalexazzi.bsky.social
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're still
cheesing over the Minnesota frost rocking eighties ski suits to
their Denver Takeover Tour game. It's Tuesday, January fourteenth, and
on today's show, we'll be chatting with Hall of Fame
coach Muffett McGraw about Notre Dame's success this season, Hannah Hidalgo,
the state of coaching in women's sports, and more. Plus
a brit goes to Canada College hockey gets cooking and
(00:24):
some folks have punched their tickets straight to the bad place.
It's all coming up right after this welcome back slices.
Here's what you need to know today to soccer. Casey
Stoney has officially been confirmed as the next coach of
(00:44):
the Canadian national team, just seven months after her questionable
firing as head coach of the San Diego Wave. If
you remember, Stony led the Wave to the playoffs in
the team's inaugural season before winning the NWSL Shield and
NWSL Challenge Cup in the following two years. The lead
for Team Canada after former head coach Bev Priestman was
handed a one year suspension by FIFA and then fired
(01:06):
by Soccer Canada after an investigation into the program's use
of drones to spy on other teams. There's also some
coaching news in pro basketball, with a couple WNBA teams
rounding out their benches. Newly announced Dallas Wings coach Chris
Koklanis has hired Camille Smith and Nola Henry to serve
as assistants. Smith and Henry both served as assistants for
the Los Angeles Sparks under then head coach Kurt Miller
(01:28):
during the twenty twenty four season. Henry is also one
of the head coaches for the inaugural season of Unrivaled,
where she'll lead the Rose basketball club. The New York
Liberty also announced the signing of a new assistant coach,
Sonia Rahman. She most recently served as an assistant coach
for the mnba's Memphis Grizzlies, spending five seasons with the team.
To college hockey, the Women's bean Pot gets underway tonight.
(01:50):
The annual tournament is a big deal in Boston, where
the four local teams Northeastern, bu BC, and Harvard meet
up to compete for bragging rights. Last year's championship mark
the five first time the women played at t D Garden,
home of the NHL's Bruins, and they'll be back again
this year for next Tuesday's championship. But first, the semi
finals get underway tonight at Northeastern's Matthew's Arena. Boston College
(02:12):
faces off against Harvard, followed by BC against Northeastern. Finally,
some infuriating and scary news over the weekend, A fifty
five year old man from Texas was arrested in Indianapolis
and charged with felony stalking after he allegedly sent threats
and sexually explicit messages to WNBA star Caitlin Clark. The
Athletic reviewed the court documents and reported that the man,
(02:33):
named Michael Lewis, traveled from his home in Texas to
Indiana in order to be closer to Clark. The Indianapolis
Star reported that prosecutors have moved to ban the man
from the two home venues where the Fever play, Hanklefield
House and Gainbridge Field House. We got to take a
quick break. When we come back, we get real honest.
With Muffett McGraw joining us now. She was the head
(03:02):
women's basketball coach at Notre Dame from nineteen eighty seven
to twenty twenty, compiling an eight hundred and forty eight
and two to fifty two record over thirty three seasons.
She led her team to nine final fours, seven championship
game appearances, and two National Championship wins. A college player
at Saint Joseph's University, then briefly a pro player for
the California Dreams of the Women's Professional Basketball League, she
coached a few spots before Notre Dame, including Lehigh, where
(03:25):
she coached now WNBA Commissi Kathy Engelbert, a member of
the Nasmith Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women's Basketball
Hall of Fame and the first female coach at Notre
Dame to have a statue in her honor. She was
born Ann, but she legally changed her name to Muffett.
Yes like little Miss Muffett, and she once appeared on
NPR's weight Wait don't tell me an incorrectly answered a
question about a nursery rhyme that's actually about consorting with prostitutes.
(03:46):
It's Muffett McGraw. What's up, coach?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I remember that. Wait, wait, don't tell me. That was
so much fun. I'd love that show.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I was shocked to hear that the Lucy goosey or
whatever rhyme was actually about hookers.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I had little to I know.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Coach, thank you so much for taking time to come
on the show. You retired from coaching in twenty twenty,
and we saw you pop up on ESPN recently doing
some NCAA hoops analysis. Can we expect more of that?
Tell us what else you've been up to.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I'm on every Thursday night on the ACC Network. We
have a women's show. It's the only women's show in
the country. We feature ACC basketball, but we have an
hour long show all women, and that's all we talk
about every single week right up through the tournament. And
I'm doing a little bit of ESPN also, but mostly
we cover ACC Network.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
What's the show called, tell us?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Oh, it's called nothing but Net. But the problem is
the men's show is called nothing but Net also, so
when you're taping them, you're going to get a hundred
of them instead of just the one. So you have
to find a Thursday night show.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Okay, Thursday night, nothing but Net. I love that. I
want to talk some Irish hoops before we zoom out
and go more big picture. We've seen former players take
over coaching duties at their alma maters with success before,
but neil Ivy's transitioned to head coach just felt especially seamless.
And we know she was your assistant for over a
decade before taking over. That certainly helps. But what is
it about her that makes her such an excellent head
(05:06):
coach and recruiter?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
You know, I think point guards make the best coaches.
They look at the game differently, they study the game differently,
you know, they see it from that angle where they're
seeing the whole floor. They know everything that's going on
in every position. And as a point guard, she was
that kind of player, just a really smart player, a
great leader, and I knew a long time ago that
she was going to be a terrific coach. So when
(05:28):
I had a job open, it was pretty much the
easiest decision ever made to hire neil Ivy. And she
was young, she didn't know, she didn't have any experience,
she didn't know a lot, But each day, each year
really kind of gave her a little bit more and
a little bit more until eventually she was ready to
do it all. But the first year she came in,
I said you have one job. Get Skylar Diggins to
(05:49):
say yes to Notre Dame. That's the only recruit you have.
I want you working full time on that. And then
of course she did that very well and continued to
be one of our recruiters. But also she was a
great scout. She understands offense and defense. And then the
year that I was about to retire, she had an
opportunity to go to Memphis in the NBA and have
(06:11):
a year in the NBA. And you know, I said,
what a great training ground for you. You've only ever
known me. You know I'm the only person you played
for me. You coach with me, go learn something different
from somebody else at the highest level. And I think
that really helped her as well.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So speaking of recruiting, actually I want to ask you this.
Caitlyn Clark talked about how Notre Dame was top of
the list and then she made the switch to Iowa.
What do you remember about those conversations and what would
it have looked like if it had been Caitlyn Clark
at Notre Dame.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
I may still be coaching if Kaitlyn Clark couldn't come
to Notre Dame. I remember it well. I loved recruiting
her terrific, terrific person, loved her game of parents, great family,
everything was good. She went to a Catholic school. When
I went to recruiting at Dallan Catholic, they waited on me.
I mean, they brought me popcorn, they brought me drink,
you know, they gave me special seating. It was amazing.
(07:02):
Everybody in the place, I think, wanted her to go
to Notre Dame. And it was fun recruiting or the
home visit was great. She committed to us, but I
had a feeling it was kind of a soft commitment
when she did, because she couldn't decide, couldn't decide. And
then finally she said, you know, I want to come,
but it wasn't it wasn't like I'm coming, you know,
it was kind of like I made the decision. And
(07:23):
so after that we waited and waited for her to
announce it because, as you know, we're not allowed to
announce anything. The players have to do that themselves. And
so she made the announcement. A long time after that,
I kept saying, when is it coming out? And then
when she made the announcement she was going to Iowa.
But of course she called me first to tell me
that she was going to that classy person that she is,
(07:46):
you know, And I thought, after seeing four years of
her at Iowa, it was probably a pretty good decision
because I remember thinking, I'm not sure I'm gonna like
those shots right over half court when we have all
these good players around you. So I think she made
a good decision. We would have obviously been contending for
national championship if she had come to Notre Dame, but
(08:07):
total respect for her game.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Oh, I can hear the Notre Dame fans out there
both crying and screaming about that missed opportunity. Okay, let's
talk this Irish team. After a little transitional period, they've
been back in the top five on a regular basis
for the last three seasons, currently sitting at number three
in the country with what feels like a pretty good
opportunity to make a title run. What do you enjoy
most about watching this group of players and the brand
(08:30):
of hoops they're playing.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
The best backcourt in the country at Notre Dame. I'm
loving Olivia Miles is an incredible passer. She has such
great vision. She's really fun to watch improved a three
point percentage by twenty percentage points.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
And then Hannah Hidalgo, who was the national player of
the year I think, and she also leads the nation
in steals. She's I think second in the country in scoring,
first in steals. Those two are so hard to guard.
You want to put your best defender on one of them,
and you can't decide which one. And then you've got
Sonya Citron on the wing. Mattie Westfield is back and healthy.
(09:07):
I mean, what a terrific, terrific squad. And they got
Leah tu King from pitt in the transfer portal. She
is playing great basketball right now. So this team has
all of the tools to get to the final four.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Doesnielle ever call you just like, Hey, I have a
quick question or I was thinking about this. What do
you make of this? Oh?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah, we talk and I text her pretty frequently just
after games about great stuff. I don't I never critique
the team, but yeah, we talk more in the preseason.
You know, here's what we're putting in. What do you
think about this or that?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Oh? Wow, what a nice thing for her to have
you on on standby for that. You mentioned Hannahidalgo such
a fun player to watch, absolutely insane swag, so many
skills in her bag, and it's been interesting to see
the reaction to her play. She obviously as a player,
is undoubtedly, like you said, in the running for Player
of the Year. But I haven't seen a lot of
(09:59):
covered of some of the online pushback that she got.
Last summer, she reposted a conversation to her Instagram story.
It was a conversation between former CNN host and gay
man Don Lemon and Candice Owens, who's a political commentator,
and she later deleted it, but she posted this part
of the video where Lemon asked Owens if she believes
that he's sinful because he's married to a man, and
Owens responded, yes, you're sinning, you're in a sinful relationship.
(10:22):
I actually don't believe marriage can be between two men.
And you know, obviously people are allowed to have their beliefs,
but when religious beliefs include sharing some of those bigoted views,
and especially when they're in this space of women's basketball
that has plenty of out gay athletes, I wonder what
responsibility there is for the team or the media, I guess,
to hold an athlete accountable to expect them to speak
(10:43):
on that and defend that behavior. What did you make
of that and how it's been responded to or maybe
not responded to.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
I thought it was a really poor choice on her part,
first been leaving that I think it's a poor choice,
and then saying it on as you said, on a
stage where women's basketball. There are a number of gay
players out there, and I thought that it was almost
insulting to our teammates, to everybody in the game of basketball.
(11:14):
I was really disappointed that it came out that way.
I was happy that she deleted it, but the damage
I think was done before she deleted it.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah. I think we've talked about this on our show
with a couple different athletes, where the natural instinct is
to call someone out for behavior that you disagree with,
but ultimately, when you're on a team, you're in a
locker room, you have to work together with a shared goal.
There is this feeling of calling in. How do you
hold someone accountable and also try to let them learn
or experience life in a way that might change their
(11:44):
mind about something like that. How do you balance accountability
in a locker room when you were coaching with all
these different mindsets and lived experiences coming together.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Well, you know, Sarah, I think the great thing about
sports is we're a microcosm of society and we deal
and live work with different people who you know, different
They come from different backgrounds, black, white, straight, gay, religious,
not religious. You know, there's so many things that they
do to work together, and they come out as a
team with one goal, one team. And so I think
(12:16):
it's really hard to have a player in the locker
room that feels that way about somebody else in the
locker room who may be gay. So I think it's
going to take it would take a lot of conversations.
Accountability for me, was like that was the number one
thing in having a championship team. Honesty, trust and accountability.
It's hard to trust when you have somebody that believes
(12:36):
that what you believe is wrong. So I think it
takes a lot of time to kind of get to
know people, learn, you know, this is what I think,
this is who I am, you know, and really have
open conversations about it, because I don't think it's a
good idea to just see it and then not talk
about it.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah, yeah, it does feel like ultimately it's as festers
when there aren't more open conversations about it. She's a
young person and I hope that she does find her
way to the other side of that kind of thinking.
But hopefully there is support within that locker room and
accountability eventually. Right if any of those posts continue, or
if she continues to make those kind of statements. I
(13:15):
want to talk about now that you're separated from the
space a little bit more, not in it every day.
Back in twenty twenty one, you said you thought ESPN
was biased toward Yukon. Do you still think that's an issue?
Has it changed at all? And now that there is
a little bit more parody in terms of the superstar players, coaches, storylines,
is ESPN doing a better job sharing the wealth?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Well? I think now the fact that the Big East
is on Fox, I think that they don't have as
many games on. But I think the real thing that's changed,
Sarah was when conferences got their own TV deals, the
ACC Network, the SEC Network, people were able to watch
games without hearing about Yukon because the announcers were focusing
on that conference. So I think that conversations really have
(13:59):
turned to you know, what's happening in the SEC, what's
happening in the ACC, what's happened in the Big Ten.
I mean, everybody has their own networks, so when you
watch games, you're not constantly hearing about that. And I
think the fact that we've you know, we've had other
really good teams South Carolina, LSU, so many other different
teams are winning now, I think that there is room
(14:21):
for everyone. I think that Connecticut definitely benefited from what
they got from ESPN through the years, but lately with
other teams winning, I don't I think that they still
believe that everybody wants to watch Yukon play. And then
when you look at the teams and the games, and
you saw what happened in the final last year with
(14:41):
you know, Connecticut wasn't in the final, and we set
records for people watching and listening. So I think they're
they're learning, but I think they still that's still their fallback.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, and it's so close, like literally geographically too. So
I found those conversations simultaneously infuriating and fascinating for all
those years about like, is Yukon women's basketball bad for women?
And it was like you both understood that singular focus
was limiting your ability to learn about the rest of
the teams and stars. And you also knew that when
(15:11):
you create this like sometimes person or team to hate
because they're always winning, it also drives interest in a
way that spreading the wealth doesn't. So I think we're
in a much better spot now as women's basketball. But
I do think they played their role in kind of
the same way that Caitlyn played a role in this
massive leap of excitement. Is people sometimes need that one
(15:33):
thing to focus in on that kind of opens the
door for them. Do you agree?
Speaker 2 (15:36):
I absolutely agree? And can I get set the standard?
I mean they raised the bar for everyone, and you know,
rising tide lifts all boats. Everybody started to say, we
got to do what they're doing. How are we going
to do that? What do we have to do recruiting wise,
what kind of style of play? What is it that
we need to improve on to get to their level?
And that was the biggest thing. I think It's all
about recruiting. They have three Player of the Years right
(15:58):
now on their high school Player of the Years, and
you're gonna have a pretty good team when you get
the number one player. And what happened to give us parody?
You know, Asia decides you're gonna go to South Carolina
and Leah Boston went to South Carolina, and different people
were going different places, and that's really how we got
the parody going. Somebody like Caitlin Clark stays in Iowa
(16:21):
and brings them to a Final Four. So I think
when you have players that are willing to go different places.
But again, if you're not hearing Connecticut all the time
every time you're watching the game, maybe you will think, hey,
we're watching South Carolina right now, and they had a
pretty good spob.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Yeah, for sure. And also just investment right across the
space where you see what Yukon has and you think,
let's bring that to our school by actually investing in
coaches and resources and everything else, which has been really
cool to see. Yeah, I want to pick your brain
about coaching, in particular in women's basketball. Let's take a
listen to this answer that you gave you. You were
(16:56):
asked a question about women and coaching at the Final
Four back in twenty nineteen and talked about women in
leadership spaces in general, and this went truly viral. Let's
take a listen. Muffett. I know you made some comments
about hiring practices and what you do in the future.
How important. As your career has gone on and we've
lost past summit, how seriously do you take being that voice?
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Did you know that the Equal Rights Amendment was introduced
in nineteen sixty seven and it still hasn't passed. We
need thirty eight states to agree that discrimination on the
basis of sex is unconstitutional. We've had a record number
of women running for office and winning, and still we
(17:39):
have twenty three percent of the House and twenty five
percent of the Senate. I'm getting tired of the novelty
of the first American, the first female governor of this state,
the first female African American mayor of this city. When
is it going to become the norm instead of the exception.
How are these young women looking up and seeing someone
(18:01):
that looks like them preparing them for the future. We
don't have enough female role models, We don't have enough
visible women leaders. We don't have enough women in power.
Girls are socialized to know when they come out, generals
are already set. Men run the world, Men have the power,
Men make the decisions. It's always the men that is
(18:22):
the stronger one. And when these girls are coming out.
Who are they looking up to to tell them that
that's not the way it has to be. And where
better to do that than in sports. All these millions
of girls that play sports across the country. They could
come out every day and we're teaching them great things
about life skills. But wouldn't it be great if we
could teach them to watch how women lead. This is
(18:44):
a path for you to take to get to the
point where in this country we have fifty percent of
women in power. We have less out right now, less
than five percent of women are CEOs of fortune five
hundred companies. So yes, when you look at men's basketball
and ninety nine percent of the jobs go to men,
why shouldn't one hundred or ninety nine percent of the
(19:04):
jobs in women's basketball go to women. Maybe it's because
we only have ten percent women athletic directors in division. IE.
People hire people who look like them, and that's the problem.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Gosh. I'm still very moved by that, and I remember
being asked about it on around the Horn with you know,
some of the obvious and expected questions about is it
similarly discriminatory to not hire men and only hire women?
But to first, I want to ask do you feel
better or worse about the state of coaching and equality
in general today than you did then?
Speaker 2 (19:36):
You know, I think I think there were some improvements initially.
I think right after that people really did start to think.
But I think we're still sixty percent men forty percent women,
and that's a problem. The problem comes from the athletic
directors who are doing the hiring. People hire people who
look like them, and that is still true today. That's
why there's so many men. And I think that women, unfortunately,
(19:59):
we're not as aggressive go for jobs. I think we
could do a better job, first of all, of applying
for the job, of you know, going after the job,
where men are going to pick up the phone and say,
I want that job. I'm going to take your team
to the to the final four. If you hire me,
you know they're gonna they're gonna be a lot more
confident in the interview. And I've read a really interesting
article in the Harvard Business Journal and it's said men
(20:21):
win the interview because of their confidence, but women really
have better skills to do the job. They're much better
team players and collaborators. And the way coaching is going now,
it's not an autocracy. It's it's not come in and
this is what we're doing and here's how we're doing it.
It's really about team and bonding in chemistry and getting
(20:42):
people to work together, and women are so good at
that and we we just need to have the opportunity.
And when men get the job, I think it's up
to them to hire women. And that's something that Gino
has always done. He's always had women on his staff.
You have to be able to mentor them though and
get them off and become coaches. And I wish that
in the NBA, they're doing a great job. They're hiring
(21:03):
a lot of women. Bring them back like Becky Hammond,
and let's get some really good quality coaches on the
women's side.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Yeah. I think one of the points you're making is
so solid, which is that our kind of idea of
what a good coach looks like is still pretty antiquated.
It's this man who yells a lot and is intimidating.
For a lot of people, that's still what they imagine
when they think of a great coach. Four out of
the six unrivaled head coaches are men. Five of the
(21:31):
eight head coach hires in this WNBA offseason where men,
As you mentioned, four out of ten coaches in NCAA
sports are women. Six out of ten are men across
Division one, and in the last reporting that I saw
twenty twenty one to twenty two, women were just sixty
six percent of head coaches in Division one college women's basketball.
So how much of this is a lack of imagination
(21:54):
or an outdated idea of what a good coach looks like?
And how much do you think is about pipeline or
other issues.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
I think it is mostly outdated, and gender bias is real.
I mean you don't have to look very far in
any business in any way, you know, look at politics.
We haven't gotten a women president yet, and gender bias
is real. I firmly believe that women are not getting
job just because when it comes right down to it,
(22:21):
they say, oh, I'll hire a woman. I don't mind
hiring a woman, I'll vote for a woman, But when
it comes down to it, they don't. And I think
that's a problem. When you look at really everything, you know,
you look in movies and TV and stuff we're watching,
how many producers, how many people behind the scenes. When
you look at how much they are they getting paid.
How much are the women getting paid compared to them,
(22:42):
to the male actors. I think it's across the board.
You know, we're struggling to have equal pay, We're struggling
to have equal opportunity. They're taking our rights away. I mean,
we are going in the wrong direction. We have so
many things that we need to really find somebody in
a leadership position that really understands women, and right now
we don't have that.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yeah, I completely agree. And to your point about the
way men might pitch themselves as opposed to the job
that actually needs to be done is fascinating. I have
a friend named Linda lu who wrote a piece about
co leadership and the co leadership model that she uses
with her co head of company, and she wrote, the
(23:21):
most prominent model of leadership we've seen focuses on finding
ways to have more power over more people and in
turn to control a press and dictate how others should be.
This type of leadership is steeped in the white supremacy
culture of a deep sense of urgency, an immense amount
of control, Bigger is better thinking, and a simplistic view
that there's only one right way to be an effective leader.
And the right way is to lead with certainty even
(23:42):
when you're uncertain, with power concentrated at the top, and
with a singular vision for the organization which all other
team members are then incentivized to achieve. But true leadership
is not about power and control. It's about a balance
between vision and journey, rooted and expansiveness, evolution, and always
in service to uniting, uplifting and caring for the collective.
Sounds like a team to me, the second one, not
the first one. And yet it does feel like the
(24:04):
old ideas around coaches and particularly why men get those jobs,
is the idea of my way or the highway. I'm
certain power at the top, everybody following, if you do
what I say, will win. How do we convince people
that that ain't it anymore?
Speaker 2 (24:18):
I think it's starting to come when when you read
any kind of leadership books now, they all talk about
it's not top down leadership anymore. That's not the way
you lead because so many of those leaders fail eventually,
So you have to find the person that's going to
be a clever And all of the definitions that she
used to describing that second leadership thing, I kept thinking,
that's a woman, that's a woman. All these things are
(24:39):
what our strengths are, and that's what real leadership looks like.
And I think we have to start younger. I mean,
when you look at kids going out to play soccer
when they're five and six years old, who's coaching the team?
Somebody's dad. Every time they have a chance to see
what leadership looks like, there's a man at the top.
You go into middle school, you go to aau, all
(25:00):
of those coaches are men. So you're teaching these kids
men and women, Like, why isn't a woman. We have
so many great soccer players, why don't they coach their
sons team. Now, let's get more women out there coaching
boys at the younger ages so that they can look
up and say, oh so I have a coach that's
a woman. It's no big deal, you know, and they
start to accept it at a younger age because we're
(25:21):
still so stereotypical. You know, you look at the boys
and girls. You know, you're pink, you're blue, you're going
down the aisle with the dolls, or you're going down
for the chemistry set and the trucks. You know, we
have to do something at a younger age to teach
these kids that you can be anything you want to be.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Yeah, And it feels too like there has to be
an over correction with intention because to your point about
women coaches, sometimes what happens is the first barrier is, well,
I didn't play Division one, so I can't coach them. Meanwhile,
the dad over there never played at all, but he's
like I know this, yeah right. So after you get
past that, though, then it's are you able to be
away from your home or family for this the hours
(26:00):
or are you the primary caregiver right? Or are you
able to travel with the team If you have children
at home? Is their childcare right? So some of the
steps aren't just equality of opportunity, but what does the
pipeline and then the path of the work look like
so that women are capable of doing it? And do
we have to overcorrect in that way so that we
(26:20):
create more space.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Well, I definitely think we need an overcorrection. I think
that's a good point. I think that's why women don't
move around as much as men. You know, I'm going
to take this shob that I'm going to take that
job because it's more money. You know, they're more loyal,
they're looking at different things. They're probably a tendency to
stay more in one space, But I think that's changing too,
And I think that you have to look at the
(26:42):
questions we get asked, Well, who's going to take care
of the kids while you're out recruiting? You know, they
don't ask men those questions, So we really we just
need to figure out a way to be that leader
and show people like we can do it. And there's
plenty of coaches that are doing it now. There are
a lot of women out there who have kids and
people are everybody's been taken care of, you know, it's
(27:04):
not our job all the time. And really having a
great spouse, I think that's really a big part of
the job. If you can have somebody to share that
load with you and be a teammate at home, I
think that's where women are going to find more success.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah, where would you start to change the makeup of
the coaching ranks? Would you try to talk to more
of the decision makers and change their mindset? Would you
try to start at lower levels and create the kind
of training in both confidence and ability to be willing
to put themselves out there more for these jobs, Like
where's the best place that we need to be investing
time and resources.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
You know, it's so hard to say, Sarah, because you
want to start at both places. We definitely need a
good pipeline. We need these women who are assistant coaches
to believe that they're capable and they're ready to move on.
And that is the head coach's job really to start
to prepare them to be that next assistant coach. I
always thought that was that's part of my job, like
I want you to be a head coach. I want
(27:59):
people to move on, and so we need to do
that more. But I think the athletic directors for sure,
sometimes I mean we're getting to a spot where now
there is a little bit more money. Now I'm going
to be making money from the NCAA. Now suddenly we
might have some money coming in. So ads are a
little more worried about who they hire. Well, you know,
there was a time when they really they really didn't
(28:20):
take it that seriously. You know, well nobody applied, No
women applied, as if the football job opened and they
were waiting to see who was going to apply for
that job. So I think they they definitely need somebody
to be helping them and and I think that's I
think that's happening. I know a few ads that have
never hired a man to coach their women's team, So
there's some of them out there. We just need more.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
How do you apply to someone that listened to your
h I'm not going to call it a rantom to
call it an inspired speech from a couple of years ago,
and responded to your hire only women's stance with you know,
you should hire the best person? Or what if a
men's coach said the same thing, what's your response to that? Well?
Speaker 2 (28:57):
I think when whenever I would say to somebody, are
you looking to hire a woman? They would say I'm
going to hire the best person for the job. And
I would say, great, then you're going to be hiring
a woman. And I think that that people don't again
they you know, they look at the interview and they're
looking at men doing certain things and we're going to
get better at that. We can get better at that.
But I think you have to go out intentionally. I
(29:17):
think you have to look and say it's women's basketball.
These women need a role model, they need somebody they
can look up to and say that's what I want
to be. There's where my path to success is going
to be. That's my future. I'm looking at somebody. Men
can't teach women women what it's like to be a
woman at this age, in this time of their life
and the things that we have to go through, and
(29:38):
the stereotypes were battling the little I call them paper
cuts that you know, we all go through, like just
almost daily, somebody says something, or you hear something, you
read something, and you think, oh, my gosh, how are
we going to deal with this? They need strong women
to be able to look up to and help them
through so many different things that they're going through at
this age.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah, And I think if you're tempted to apply the
same logic in reverse, you will be ignoring the context
that exists. There is not currently a vacuum of male
representation in sport. There is not a vacuum or historic
precedent of men not being in leadership positions that women
and men can see. So if you're talking about why
(30:20):
it's great to add a female coach to a men's team,
there are myriad ways that that is necessary and beneficial
that don't apply in reverse the other way because they
are already seeing and exposed to a million different male
leadership models across the space, and usually in their coaching
coming up and everywhere else. Do we hold it against
spaces that are not making enough of an effort or
at least not getting the outcome, or at least not
(30:42):
resulting in enough women coaches. Like I mentioned, Unrivaled is
for women by women, and yet four of the six
head coaches are men. The WNBA is getting further away
from diversity in terms of both race and gender in
terms of their head coaching. Do we hold these places
feet to the fire or do we look at it
in cycles and give them the benefit of the doubt
(31:02):
that that's what the interviews came up with.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Oh, I definitely think we should hold them accountable. You
look at what happened at Phoenix last year when they
had a coaching changed. They not only hired a man
who had no experience with coaching women, but he was
the highest bided coach in the new UNBI. Now how
is that possible? So, you know, was there a public outcry?
I didn't feel it. I mean, I think there was
(31:24):
a lot of things said behind closed doors, But you know,
and then the team was not very successful. So what
are we looking at now? And I think the other
problem is a lot of teams look and say, you
know what, hired a woman, tried that didn't work. Hired
a man. I mean, you know, but never say that
when it's a guy. You know, we are like representing
(31:45):
our entire gender every time we take a jump.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Yeah, it's so true. You know. One of the things
that was the biggest change in the makeup gender makeup
of college women's sports was money. Historically it was predominant women,
and it was back with Pat Summit had to do
the laundry and coach the team. Right, you start making money,
men are like that looks nice over there, They get
hired more, and bam, all of a sudden, we have
(32:09):
all these women's teams being coached by men instead. There's
also that disparity between the professional and college ranks. Historically,
hoops coaching jobs have been more financially desirable than coaching
in the WNBA. The best college coaches are making more
money than most WNBA head coaches. USA Today reported eighteen
college coaches last year had an annual based salary of
(32:30):
more than a million. As far as we know, just
Nate Tibbets you just mentioned and Becky Hammond make that much.
How do you think that paid disparity plays into whether
coaches decide to coach in college or the W And
is that something that the W needs to address in
order to draw the kind of candidates that might go elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Well, I think the W could address that, but I
think we're going to see very soon coaches leaving college.
We have two of them already this year leaving the
college game and heading to the WNBA because of n
and the transfer portal. I think, especially some of the
older coaches that are looking in saying this in the
job I signed up for, I really want to teach,
(33:08):
you know, I really feel like I'm an educator as
much as a coach. And now it's all about who's
got the most money, and that's really not what amateur
athletics was supposed to be about. So I think we
will see some coaches moving on like the two that
did it this year, and see what kind of success
they had, and that could be I can see women
(33:29):
being driven out of the game because they don't want
to deal with all the money issues, the transfer stuff.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
We were talking earlier about how money might change some
of the investments and more parody across the college space.
There is a potential, too, for another distribution of money
across the college spase. The twenty twenty five NCAA Convention
is this week. Full membership is expected to vote on
whether to approve a women's basketball distribution fund, which is
called the Unit. If you haven't heard of the Unit,
(33:57):
the context is basically, since ninety one, NCAA has paid
conferences for the games their teams play during March Madness.
So you earn a unit at about two million dollars
each for every game they play during the tournament, and
then over the next six years, the conferences decide how
to allocate the money to each school. So SEC got
sixteen units last year. That's about thirty two million for
the men's basketball teams over the previous six years, but
(34:20):
no women's teams in the SEC have earned any money
from that. Even though the game Cocks made the Final
four for four straight years won two titles, that doesn't
make the school money. Now, this is something I've railed
against for years, because how do you incentivize investment in
your women's team if you have nothing to show for it?
When they have great success, and on the men's side,
you're constantly getting paid every time your team approves. So
the NCAA membership can vote to change that this week.
(34:43):
The amount for the women's tournament is not surprisingly far
less than what the men's would make. It would be
about fifteen million allocated from this tournament compared to two
hundred and twenty million on the men's side. But it's
a start. Do you think that that needs to happen?
Do we need to start showing schools if you care
about women's sports and your teams do well, it will
help you financially.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Absolutely, it's been a long time coming. I think Charlie
Baker's really done a great job as ahead of the
nc DOUBLEA. He is very pro women and pro equality.
And you're right, it's such a small number. I mean,
you take fifteen million. If you divide it by thirty
two conferences, or even even if you went to sweet sixteen,
you get a million dollars for your conference. How much
(35:22):
is these school going to gates? Some of these leagues
have eighteen teams, so you know, but I think it's
a good starting point that the other issue is how
are they gonna enhance that every year. I think there
was like a percentage it's going to go up four
percent every year or six or whatever. That's not very much.
I mean we need to double it every year, and
we need to try to catch up. They certainly have
enough money on the men's side's let's share that pot.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Well, and particularly as the numbers continue to be less
jarring in favor of the men. Last year, the women's
final game, the championship game, got better ratings than the men.
There are far more household names on the women's side
because as the one and done situation on the men's
side means that a star is in and out and
moved on before you've had a chance to really learn
(36:05):
about them. On the women's side, we are getting players
like Juju Watkins, for instance, who had such a spectacular
freshman year that were sophomore year and she has already
known and starring across the space, drawing fans, drawing interest
that should be viewed in a way that we for
years have ignored. On the women's side, This value that
they're bringing to their schools, and to do it by
(36:26):
virtue of tournament appearances and success just makes sense. When
you're doing it on the men's side. One last question
about the sort of NCAA we've seen over the last
couple of years, beginning really with the independent investigation into
the rights values of the women's tournament, where they realize
that they at the time said it was worth about
eighty million a year to have the rights to the
women's tournament, with upwards of one hundred and ten million
(36:48):
in value per year, and they were being coupled with
all the rights to the other national titles for about
six million. It was an absolute disgrace, and for a
place that's really known to care mostly about money in
the NCUBA in a lot of ways, for them to
be losing that much money just told you how much
the misogyny and the antiquatedy is about the value of
(37:09):
women's sports were baked in that they didn't even have
a belief that they were missing out on so much.
So let's talk about now the idea that they are
separating the rights packages. They're actually looking at the women's
tournament as a money maker, they're actually looking at the
valuation realistically. But that number, that eighty one to one
hundred and twelve million, that was sort of ignored instead
(37:30):
they agreed to continue bundling it with other NCAA championships
as part of an eight year deal with ESPN. Nine
hundred and twenty million dollars. Sounds like a big number,
but that's all of them. Do you think the women's
tournament should have just been sold separately? Do you think
they should have looked at that valuation and said, let's
actually get out there and see what we can get
for this product.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
I think that was the hope of most of the people,
and the Women's Coaches Association and people familiar with what
we're doing here. I think everybody wanted us to go out,
be separate, stand on our own, see what we could do.
I don't know what happened in the negotiations. Obviously it
did not come to fruition, but I really do have
faith in Charlie Baker and where he has taken women's basketball,
(38:10):
So I hope that in the future there was a plan.
But I think Camlyn Clark changed the game. I mean
she changed everything. We were playing in arenas that were
probably too small, you know, by the time, but you know,
you have to make those decisions five years out. Before
she even got to Iowa. The decision was made where
they're going to play the NCAA tournament. So I think
that we were maybe a little short sighted with our vision,
(38:31):
and now I think we've seen what we can be.
I think we're finally at that point where so many
women in my generation are saying, I knew what would happen.
I'm glad it happened in my lifetime, and now let's
build on that.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Yeah. I would like to see some failures in the
opposite direction where they're like, oops, we went too big.
Yes we didn't sell out, like how we don't see
that often. Usually what we see as well sold out
in twenty four hours. Oh well you could have gone
even bigger. Do it next time? Right? Yeah? Well, coach,
I mean, I know you've got the ACC show, you're
doing some stuff ESPN. I know you have earned retirement
(39:02):
and to do nothing but eat bombbonds all day and
sit marks. But please keep your voice in these spaces.
Get Charlie on the phone as often as possible. Talk
to the people in decision making spaces, because your voice
is so needed, and we are at this precipice of major,
major change that could get much much bigger. But we
need people to not drop the ball in these opportunities,
(39:23):
and I trust you and I would follow you into battle,
so you know, make sure you're around when these conversations
are being had.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Thanks Sarah, I feel the same about you. I love
your voice. You are doing your best and we all
need to get on board.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Thanks again to coach for taking the time. If you
want to watch that great viral speech again, we'll link
to it in the show notes, as well as an
essay from Director of Women's Coaches and Executives at Wasserman
Emily Joe Roberts about investing in women coaches, and we'll
put the link to the co leadership essay I mentioned
from my friend Linda Lou as well. We got to
take another quick break stick around welcome back slices. We
(40:05):
always love that you're listening and we love to hear
from you, so hit us up on email good game
at wondermedianetwork dot com or leave us a voicemail at
eight seven two two oh four point fifty seventy and
don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. It's easy. Watch
folks setting up fake GoFundMe accounts in the wake of
the California fires rating minus infinity Karma points review. Please
(40:30):
be careful when showing your support for victims of the
LA fires. Be sure to give to links that go
to organizations, not individuals, unless you know the person directly.
There are even some accounts using real victims that then
divert the money to a scammer instead. People are truly
the worst, but giving supplies and funds and ensuring that
they go to the right people is the only way
(40:51):
to counteract their evil, So do please get involved. Just
quadruple check your links and your recipients. Now's your turn,
rate and review. Thanks for listening, See you tomorrow. Good Game, Muffett,
Good Game, neel Ivy you gender bias. Good Game with
Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership
with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us
(41:13):
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network, our producers are
Alex Azzie and Misha Jones. Our executive producers are Christina Everett,
Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan, and Emily Rudder. Our editors are
Emily Rudder, Britney Martinez, Grace Lynch, and Lindsay Crawdowell. Production
assistants from Lucy Jones and I'm Your Host Sarah Spain.
Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're still
cheesing over the Minnesota frost rocking eighties ski suits to
their Denver Takeover Tour game. It's Tuesday, January fourteenth, and
on today's show, we'll be chatting with Hall of Fame
coach Muffett McGraw about Notre Dame's success this season, Hannah Hidalgo,
the state of coaching in women's sports, and more. Plus
a brit goes to Canada College hockey gets cooking and
(00:24):
some folks have punched their tickets straight to the bad place.
It's all coming up right after this welcome back slices.
Here's what you need to know today to soccer. Casey
Stoney has officially been confirmed as the next coach of
(00:44):
the Canadian national team, just seven months after her questionable
firing as head coach of the San Diego Wave. If
you remember, Stony led the Wave to the playoffs in
the team's inaugural season before winning the NWSL Shield and
NWSL Challenge Cup in the following two years. The lead
for Team Canada after former head coach Bev Priestman was
handed a one year suspension by FIFA and then fired
(01:06):
by Soccer Canada after an investigation into the program's use
of drones to spy on other teams. There's also some
coaching news in pro basketball, with a couple WNBA teams
rounding out their benches. Newly announced Dallas Wings coach Chris
Koklanis has hired Camille Smith and Nola Henry to serve
as assistants. Smith and Henry both served as assistants for
the Los Angeles Sparks under then head coach Kurt Miller
(01:28):
during the twenty twenty four season. Henry is also one
of the head coaches for the inaugural season of Unrivaled,
where she'll lead the Rose basketball club. The New York
Liberty also announced the signing of a new assistant coach,
Sonia Rahman. She most recently served as an assistant coach
for the mnba's Memphis Grizzlies, spending five seasons with the team.
To college hockey, the Women's bean Pot gets underway tonight.
(01:50):
The annual tournament is a big deal in Boston, where
the four local teams Northeastern, bu BC, and Harvard meet
up to compete for bragging rights. Last year's championship mark
the five first time the women played at t D Garden,
home of the NHL's Bruins, and they'll be back again
this year for next Tuesday's championship. But first, the semi
finals get underway tonight at Northeastern's Matthew's Arena. Boston College
(02:12):
faces off against Harvard, followed by BC against Northeastern. Finally,
some infuriating and scary news over the weekend, A fifty
five year old man from Texas was arrested in Indianapolis
and charged with felony stalking after he allegedly sent threats
and sexually explicit messages to WNBA star Caitlin Clark. The
Athletic reviewed the court documents and reported that the man,
(02:33):
named Michael Lewis, traveled from his home in Texas to
Indiana in order to be closer to Clark. The Indianapolis
Star reported that prosecutors have moved to ban the man
from the two home venues where the Fever play, Hanklefield
House and Gainbridge Field House. We got to take a
quick break. When we come back, we get real honest.
With Muffett McGraw joining us now. She was the head
(03:02):
women's basketball coach at Notre Dame from nineteen eighty seven
to twenty twenty, compiling an eight hundred and forty eight
and two to fifty two record over thirty three seasons.
She led her team to nine final fours, seven championship
game appearances, and two National Championship wins. A college player
at Saint Joseph's University, then briefly a pro player for
the California Dreams of the Women's Professional Basketball League, she
coached a few spots before Notre Dame, including Lehigh, where
(03:25):
she coached now WNBA Commissi Kathy Engelbert, a member of
the Nasmith Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women's Basketball
Hall of Fame and the first female coach at Notre
Dame to have a statue in her honor. She was
born Ann, but she legally changed her name to Muffett.
Yes like little Miss Muffett, and she once appeared on
NPR's weight Wait don't tell me an incorrectly answered a
question about a nursery rhyme that's actually about consorting with prostitutes.
(03:46):
It's Muffett McGraw. What's up, coach?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I remember that. Wait, wait, don't tell me. That was
so much fun. I'd love that show.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I was shocked to hear that the Lucy goosey or
whatever rhyme was actually about hookers.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I had little to I know.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Coach, thank you so much for taking time to come
on the show. You retired from coaching in twenty twenty,
and we saw you pop up on ESPN recently doing
some NCAA hoops analysis. Can we expect more of that?
Tell us what else you've been up to.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I'm on every Thursday night on the ACC Network. We
have a women's show. It's the only women's show in
the country. We feature ACC basketball, but we have an
hour long show all women, and that's all we talk
about every single week right up through the tournament. And
I'm doing a little bit of ESPN also, but mostly
we cover ACC Network.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
What's the show called, tell us?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Oh, it's called nothing but Net. But the problem is
the men's show is called nothing but Net also, so
when you're taping them, you're going to get a hundred
of them instead of just the one. So you have
to find a Thursday night show.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Okay, Thursday night, nothing but Net. I love that. I
want to talk some Irish hoops before we zoom out
and go more big picture. We've seen former players take
over coaching duties at their alma maters with success before,
but neil Ivy's transitioned to head coach just felt especially seamless.
And we know she was your assistant for over a
decade before taking over. That certainly helps. But what is
it about her that makes her such an excellent head
(05:06):
coach and recruiter?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
You know, I think point guards make the best coaches.
They look at the game differently, they study the game differently,
you know, they see it from that angle where they're
seeing the whole floor. They know everything that's going on
in every position. And as a point guard, she was
that kind of player, just a really smart player, a
great leader, and I knew a long time ago that
she was going to be a terrific coach. So when
(05:28):
I had a job open, it was pretty much the
easiest decision ever made to hire neil Ivy. And she
was young, she didn't know, she didn't have any experience,
she didn't know a lot, But each day, each year
really kind of gave her a little bit more and
a little bit more until eventually she was ready to
do it all. But the first year she came in,
I said you have one job. Get Skylar Diggins to
(05:49):
say yes to Notre Dame. That's the only recruit you have.
I want you working full time on that. And then
of course she did that very well and continued to
be one of our recruiters. But also she was a
great scout. She understands offense and defense. And then the
year that I was about to retire, she had an
opportunity to go to Memphis in the NBA and have
(06:11):
a year in the NBA. And you know, I said,
what a great training ground for you. You've only ever
known me. You know I'm the only person you played
for me. You coach with me, go learn something different
from somebody else at the highest level. And I think
that really helped her as well.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So speaking of recruiting, actually I want to ask you this.
Caitlyn Clark talked about how Notre Dame was top of
the list and then she made the switch to Iowa.
What do you remember about those conversations and what would
it have looked like if it had been Caitlyn Clark
at Notre Dame.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
I may still be coaching if Kaitlyn Clark couldn't come
to Notre Dame. I remember it well. I loved recruiting
her terrific, terrific person, loved her game of parents, great family,
everything was good. She went to a Catholic school. When
I went to recruiting at Dallan Catholic, they waited on me.
I mean, they brought me popcorn, they brought me drink,
you know, they gave me special seating. It was amazing.
(07:02):
Everybody in the place, I think, wanted her to go
to Notre Dame. And it was fun recruiting or the
home visit was great. She committed to us, but I
had a feeling it was kind of a soft commitment
when she did, because she couldn't decide, couldn't decide. And
then finally she said, you know, I want to come,
but it wasn't it wasn't like I'm coming, you know,
it was kind of like I made the decision. And
(07:23):
so after that we waited and waited for her to
announce it because, as you know, we're not allowed to
announce anything. The players have to do that themselves. And
so she made the announcement. A long time after that,
I kept saying, when is it coming out? And then
when she made the announcement she was going to Iowa.
But of course she called me first to tell me
that she was going to that classy person that she is,
(07:46):
you know, And I thought, after seeing four years of
her at Iowa, it was probably a pretty good decision
because I remember thinking, I'm not sure I'm gonna like
those shots right over half court when we have all
these good players around you. So I think she made
a good decision. We would have obviously been contending for
national championship if she had come to Notre Dame, but
(08:07):
total respect for her game.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Oh, I can hear the Notre Dame fans out there
both crying and screaming about that missed opportunity. Okay, let's
talk this Irish team. After a little transitional period, they've
been back in the top five on a regular basis
for the last three seasons, currently sitting at number three
in the country with what feels like a pretty good
opportunity to make a title run. What do you enjoy
most about watching this group of players and the brand
(08:30):
of hoops they're playing.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
The best backcourt in the country at Notre Dame. I'm
loving Olivia Miles is an incredible passer. She has such
great vision. She's really fun to watch improved a three
point percentage by twenty percentage points.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
And then Hannah Hidalgo, who was the national player of
the year I think, and she also leads the nation
in steals. She's I think second in the country in scoring,
first in steals. Those two are so hard to guard.
You want to put your best defender on one of them,
and you can't decide which one. And then you've got
Sonya Citron on the wing. Mattie Westfield is back and healthy.
(09:07):
I mean, what a terrific, terrific squad. And they got
Leah tu King from pitt in the transfer portal. She
is playing great basketball right now. So this team has
all of the tools to get to the final four.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Doesnielle ever call you just like, Hey, I have a
quick question or I was thinking about this. What do
you make of this? Oh?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah, we talk and I text her pretty frequently just
after games about great stuff. I don't I never critique
the team, but yeah, we talk more in the preseason.
You know, here's what we're putting in. What do you
think about this or that?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Oh? Wow, what a nice thing for her to have
you on on standby for that. You mentioned Hannahidalgo such
a fun player to watch, absolutely insane swag, so many
skills in her bag, and it's been interesting to see
the reaction to her play. She obviously as a player,
is undoubtedly, like you said, in the running for Player
of the Year. But I haven't seen a lot of
(09:59):
covered of some of the online pushback that she got.
Last summer, she reposted a conversation to her Instagram story.
It was a conversation between former CNN host and gay
man Don Lemon and Candice Owens, who's a political commentator,
and she later deleted it, but she posted this part
of the video where Lemon asked Owens if she believes
that he's sinful because he's married to a man, and
Owens responded, yes, you're sinning, you're in a sinful relationship.
(10:22):
I actually don't believe marriage can be between two men.
And you know, obviously people are allowed to have their beliefs,
but when religious beliefs include sharing some of those bigoted views,
and especially when they're in this space of women's basketball
that has plenty of out gay athletes, I wonder what
responsibility there is for the team or the media, I guess,
to hold an athlete accountable to expect them to speak
(10:43):
on that and defend that behavior. What did you make
of that and how it's been responded to or maybe
not responded to.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
I thought it was a really poor choice on her part,
first been leaving that I think it's a poor choice,
and then saying it on as you said, on a
stage where women's basketball. There are a number of gay
players out there, and I thought that it was almost
insulting to our teammates, to everybody in the game of basketball.
(11:14):
I was really disappointed that it came out that way.
I was happy that she deleted it, but the damage
I think was done before she deleted it.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah. I think we've talked about this on our show
with a couple different athletes, where the natural instinct is
to call someone out for behavior that you disagree with,
but ultimately, when you're on a team, you're in a
locker room, you have to work together with a shared goal.
There is this feeling of calling in. How do you
hold someone accountable and also try to let them learn
or experience life in a way that might change their
(11:44):
mind about something like that. How do you balance accountability
in a locker room when you were coaching with all
these different mindsets and lived experiences coming together.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Well, you know, Sarah, I think the great thing about
sports is we're a microcosm of society and we deal
and live work with different people who you know, different
They come from different backgrounds, black, white, straight, gay, religious,
not religious. You know, there's so many things that they
do to work together, and they come out as a
team with one goal, one team. And so I think
(12:16):
it's really hard to have a player in the locker
room that feels that way about somebody else in the
locker room who may be gay. So I think it's
going to take it would take a lot of conversations.
Accountability for me, was like that was the number one
thing in having a championship team. Honesty, trust and accountability.
It's hard to trust when you have somebody that believes
(12:36):
that what you believe is wrong. So I think it
takes a lot of time to kind of get to
know people, learn, you know, this is what I think,
this is who I am, you know, and really have
open conversations about it, because I don't think it's a
good idea to just see it and then not talk
about it.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah, yeah, it does feel like ultimately it's as festers
when there aren't more open conversations about it. She's a
young person and I hope that she does find her
way to the other side of that kind of thinking.
But hopefully there is support within that locker room and
accountability eventually. Right if any of those posts continue, or
if she continues to make those kind of statements. I
(13:15):
want to talk about now that you're separated from the
space a little bit more, not in it every day.
Back in twenty twenty one, you said you thought ESPN
was biased toward Yukon. Do you still think that's an issue?
Has it changed at all? And now that there is
a little bit more parody in terms of the superstar players, coaches, storylines,
is ESPN doing a better job sharing the wealth?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Well? I think now the fact that the Big East
is on Fox, I think that they don't have as
many games on. But I think the real thing that's changed,
Sarah was when conferences got their own TV deals, the
ACC Network, the SEC Network, people were able to watch
games without hearing about Yukon because the announcers were focusing
on that conference. So I think that conversations really have
(13:59):
turned to you know, what's happening in the SEC, what's
happening in the ACC, what's happened in the Big Ten.
I mean, everybody has their own networks, so when you
watch games, you're not constantly hearing about that. And I
think the fact that we've you know, we've had other
really good teams South Carolina, LSU, so many other different
teams are winning now, I think that there is room
(14:21):
for everyone. I think that Connecticut definitely benefited from what
they got from ESPN through the years, but lately with
other teams winning, I don't I think that they still
believe that everybody wants to watch Yukon play. And then
when you look at the teams and the games, and
you saw what happened in the final last year with
(14:41):
you know, Connecticut wasn't in the final, and we set
records for people watching and listening. So I think they're
they're learning, but I think they still that's still their fallback.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, and it's so close, like literally geographically too. So
I found those conversations simultaneously infuriating and fascinating for all
those years about like, is Yukon women's basketball bad for women?
And it was like you both understood that singular focus
was limiting your ability to learn about the rest of
the teams and stars. And you also knew that when
(15:11):
you create this like sometimes person or team to hate
because they're always winning, it also drives interest in a
way that spreading the wealth doesn't. So I think we're
in a much better spot now as women's basketball. But
I do think they played their role in kind of
the same way that Caitlyn played a role in this
massive leap of excitement. Is people sometimes need that one
(15:33):
thing to focus in on that kind of opens the
door for them. Do you agree?
Speaker 2 (15:36):
I absolutely agree? And can I get set the standard?
I mean they raised the bar for everyone, and you know,
rising tide lifts all boats. Everybody started to say, we
got to do what they're doing. How are we going
to do that? What do we have to do recruiting wise,
what kind of style of play? What is it that
we need to improve on to get to their level?
And that was the biggest thing. I think It's all
about recruiting. They have three Player of the Years right
(15:58):
now on their high school Player of the Years, and
you're gonna have a pretty good team when you get
the number one player. And what happened to give us parody?
You know, Asia decides you're gonna go to South Carolina
and Leah Boston went to South Carolina, and different people
were going different places, and that's really how we got
the parody going. Somebody like Caitlin Clark stays in Iowa
(16:21):
and brings them to a Final Four. So I think
when you have players that are willing to go different places.
But again, if you're not hearing Connecticut all the time
every time you're watching the game, maybe you will think, hey,
we're watching South Carolina right now, and they had a
pretty good spob.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Yeah, for sure. And also just investment right across the
space where you see what Yukon has and you think,
let's bring that to our school by actually investing in
coaches and resources and everything else, which has been really
cool to see. Yeah, I want to pick your brain
about coaching, in particular in women's basketball. Let's take a
listen to this answer that you gave you. You were
(16:56):
asked a question about women and coaching at the Final
Four back in twenty nineteen and talked about women in
leadership spaces in general, and this went truly viral. Let's
take a listen. Muffett. I know you made some comments
about hiring practices and what you do in the future.
How important. As your career has gone on and we've
lost past summit, how seriously do you take being that voice?
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Did you know that the Equal Rights Amendment was introduced
in nineteen sixty seven and it still hasn't passed. We
need thirty eight states to agree that discrimination on the
basis of sex is unconstitutional. We've had a record number
of women running for office and winning, and still we
(17:39):
have twenty three percent of the House and twenty five
percent of the Senate. I'm getting tired of the novelty
of the first American, the first female governor of this state,
the first female African American mayor of this city. When
is it going to become the norm instead of the exception.
How are these young women looking up and seeing someone
(18:01):
that looks like them preparing them for the future. We
don't have enough female role models, We don't have enough
visible women leaders. We don't have enough women in power.
Girls are socialized to know when they come out, generals
are already set. Men run the world, Men have the power,
Men make the decisions. It's always the men that is
(18:22):
the stronger one. And when these girls are coming out.
Who are they looking up to to tell them that
that's not the way it has to be. And where
better to do that than in sports. All these millions
of girls that play sports across the country. They could
come out every day and we're teaching them great things
about life skills. But wouldn't it be great if we
could teach them to watch how women lead. This is
(18:44):
a path for you to take to get to the
point where in this country we have fifty percent of
women in power. We have less out right now, less
than five percent of women are CEOs of fortune five
hundred companies. So yes, when you look at men's basketball
and ninety nine percent of the jobs go to men,
why shouldn't one hundred or ninety nine percent of the
(19:04):
jobs in women's basketball go to women. Maybe it's because
we only have ten percent women athletic directors in division. IE.
People hire people who look like them, and that's the problem.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Gosh. I'm still very moved by that, and I remember
being asked about it on around the Horn with you know,
some of the obvious and expected questions about is it
similarly discriminatory to not hire men and only hire women?
But to first, I want to ask do you feel
better or worse about the state of coaching and equality
in general today than you did then?
Speaker 2 (19:36):
You know, I think I think there were some improvements initially.
I think right after that people really did start to think.
But I think we're still sixty percent men forty percent women,
and that's a problem. The problem comes from the athletic
directors who are doing the hiring. People hire people who
look like them, and that is still true today. That's
why there's so many men. And I think that women, unfortunately,
(19:59):
we're not as aggressive go for jobs. I think we
could do a better job, first of all, of applying
for the job, of you know, going after the job,
where men are going to pick up the phone and say,
I want that job. I'm going to take your team
to the to the final four. If you hire me,
you know they're gonna they're gonna be a lot more
confident in the interview. And I've read a really interesting
article in the Harvard Business Journal and it's said men
(20:21):
win the interview because of their confidence, but women really
have better skills to do the job. They're much better
team players and collaborators. And the way coaching is going now,
it's not an autocracy. It's it's not come in and
this is what we're doing and here's how we're doing it.
It's really about team and bonding in chemistry and getting
(20:42):
people to work together, and women are so good at
that and we we just need to have the opportunity.
And when men get the job, I think it's up
to them to hire women. And that's something that Gino
has always done. He's always had women on his staff.
You have to be able to mentor them though and
get them off and become coaches. And I wish that
in the NBA, they're doing a great job. They're hiring
(21:03):
a lot of women. Bring them back like Becky Hammond,
and let's get some really good quality coaches on the
women's side.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Yeah. I think one of the points you're making is
so solid, which is that our kind of idea of
what a good coach looks like is still pretty antiquated.
It's this man who yells a lot and is intimidating.
For a lot of people, that's still what they imagine
when they think of a great coach. Four out of
the six unrivaled head coaches are men. Five of the
(21:31):
eight head coach hires in this WNBA offseason where men,
As you mentioned, four out of ten coaches in NCAA
sports are women. Six out of ten are men across
Division one, and in the last reporting that I saw
twenty twenty one to twenty two, women were just sixty
six percent of head coaches in Division one college women's basketball.
So how much of this is a lack of imagination
(21:54):
or an outdated idea of what a good coach looks like?
And how much do you think is about pipeline or
other issues.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
I think it is mostly outdated, and gender bias is real.
I mean you don't have to look very far in
any business in any way, you know, look at politics.
We haven't gotten a women president yet, and gender bias
is real. I firmly believe that women are not getting
job just because when it comes right down to it,
(22:21):
they say, oh, I'll hire a woman. I don't mind
hiring a woman, I'll vote for a woman, But when
it comes down to it, they don't. And I think
that's a problem. When you look at really everything, you know,
you look in movies and TV and stuff we're watching,
how many producers, how many people behind the scenes. When
you look at how much they are they getting paid.
How much are the women getting paid compared to them,
(22:42):
to the male actors. I think it's across the board.
You know, we're struggling to have equal pay, We're struggling
to have equal opportunity. They're taking our rights away. I mean,
we are going in the wrong direction. We have so
many things that we need to really find somebody in
a leadership position that really understands women, and right now
we don't have that.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yeah, I completely agree. And to your point about the
way men might pitch themselves as opposed to the job
that actually needs to be done is fascinating. I have
a friend named Linda lu who wrote a piece about
co leadership and the co leadership model that she uses
with her co head of company, and she wrote, the
(23:21):
most prominent model of leadership we've seen focuses on finding
ways to have more power over more people and in
turn to control a press and dictate how others should be.
This type of leadership is steeped in the white supremacy
culture of a deep sense of urgency, an immense amount
of control, Bigger is better thinking, and a simplistic view
that there's only one right way to be an effective leader.
And the right way is to lead with certainty even
(23:42):
when you're uncertain, with power concentrated at the top, and
with a singular vision for the organization which all other
team members are then incentivized to achieve. But true leadership
is not about power and control. It's about a balance
between vision and journey, rooted and expansiveness, evolution, and always
in service to uniting, uplifting and caring for the collective.
Sounds like a team to me, the second one, not
the first one. And yet it does feel like the
(24:04):
old ideas around coaches and particularly why men get those jobs,
is the idea of my way or the highway. I'm
certain power at the top, everybody following, if you do
what I say, will win. How do we convince people
that that ain't it anymore?
Speaker 2 (24:18):
I think it's starting to come when when you read
any kind of leadership books now, they all talk about
it's not top down leadership anymore. That's not the way
you lead because so many of those leaders fail eventually,
So you have to find the person that's going to
be a clever And all of the definitions that she
used to describing that second leadership thing, I kept thinking,
that's a woman, that's a woman. All these things are
(24:39):
what our strengths are, and that's what real leadership looks like.
And I think we have to start younger. I mean,
when you look at kids going out to play soccer
when they're five and six years old, who's coaching the team?
Somebody's dad. Every time they have a chance to see
what leadership looks like, there's a man at the top.
You go into middle school, you go to aau, all
(25:00):
of those coaches are men. So you're teaching these kids
men and women, Like, why isn't a woman. We have
so many great soccer players, why don't they coach their
sons team. Now, let's get more women out there coaching
boys at the younger ages so that they can look
up and say, oh so I have a coach that's
a woman. It's no big deal, you know, and they
start to accept it at a younger age because we're
(25:21):
still so stereotypical. You know, you look at the boys
and girls. You know, you're pink, you're blue, you're going
down the aisle with the dolls, or you're going down
for the chemistry set and the trucks. You know, we
have to do something at a younger age to teach
these kids that you can be anything you want to be.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Yeah, And it feels too like there has to be
an over correction with intention because to your point about
women coaches, sometimes what happens is the first barrier is, well,
I didn't play Division one, so I can't coach them. Meanwhile,
the dad over there never played at all, but he's
like I know this, yeah right. So after you get
past that, though, then it's are you able to be
away from your home or family for this the hours
(26:00):
or are you the primary caregiver right? Or are you
able to travel with the team If you have children
at home? Is their childcare right? So some of the
steps aren't just equality of opportunity, but what does the
pipeline and then the path of the work look like
so that women are capable of doing it? And do
we have to overcorrect in that way so that we
(26:20):
create more space.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Well, I definitely think we need an overcorrection. I think
that's a good point. I think that's why women don't
move around as much as men. You know, I'm going
to take this shob that I'm going to take that
job because it's more money. You know, they're more loyal,
they're looking at different things. They're probably a tendency to
stay more in one space, But I think that's changing too,
And I think that you have to look at the
(26:42):
questions we get asked, Well, who's going to take care
of the kids while you're out recruiting? You know, they
don't ask men those questions, So we really we just
need to figure out a way to be that leader
and show people like we can do it. And there's
plenty of coaches that are doing it now. There are
a lot of women out there who have kids and
people are everybody's been taken care of, you know, it's
(27:04):
not our job all the time. And really having a
great spouse, I think that's really a big part of
the job. If you can have somebody to share that
load with you and be a teammate at home, I
think that's where women are going to find more success.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah, where would you start to change the makeup of
the coaching ranks? Would you try to talk to more
of the decision makers and change their mindset? Would you
try to start at lower levels and create the kind
of training in both confidence and ability to be willing
to put themselves out there more for these jobs, Like
where's the best place that we need to be investing
time and resources.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
You know, it's so hard to say, Sarah, because you
want to start at both places. We definitely need a
good pipeline. We need these women who are assistant coaches
to believe that they're capable and they're ready to move on.
And that is the head coach's job really to start
to prepare them to be that next assistant coach. I
always thought that was that's part of my job, like
I want you to be a head coach. I want
(27:59):
people to move on, and so we need to do
that more. But I think the athletic directors for sure,
sometimes I mean we're getting to a spot where now
there is a little bit more money. Now I'm going
to be making money from the NCAA. Now suddenly we
might have some money coming in. So ads are a
little more worried about who they hire. Well, you know,
there was a time when they really they really didn't
(28:20):
take it that seriously. You know, well nobody applied, No
women applied, as if the football job opened and they
were waiting to see who was going to apply for
that job. So I think they they definitely need somebody
to be helping them and and I think that's I
think that's happening. I know a few ads that have
never hired a man to coach their women's team, So
there's some of them out there. We just need more.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
How do you apply to someone that listened to your
h I'm not going to call it a rantom to
call it an inspired speech from a couple of years ago,
and responded to your hire only women's stance with you know,
you should hire the best person? Or what if a
men's coach said the same thing, what's your response to that? Well?
Speaker 2 (28:57):
I think when whenever I would say to somebody, are
you looking to hire a woman? They would say I'm
going to hire the best person for the job. And
I would say, great, then you're going to be hiring
a woman. And I think that that people don't again
they you know, they look at the interview and they're
looking at men doing certain things and we're going to
get better at that. We can get better at that.
But I think you have to go out intentionally. I
(29:17):
think you have to look and say it's women's basketball.
These women need a role model, they need somebody they
can look up to and say that's what I want
to be. There's where my path to success is going
to be. That's my future. I'm looking at somebody. Men
can't teach women women what it's like to be a
woman at this age, in this time of their life
and the things that we have to go through, and
(29:38):
the stereotypes were battling the little I call them paper
cuts that you know, we all go through, like just
almost daily, somebody says something, or you hear something, you
read something, and you think, oh, my gosh, how are
we going to deal with this? They need strong women
to be able to look up to and help them
through so many different things that they're going through at
this age.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah, And I think if you're tempted to apply the
same logic in reverse, you will be ignoring the context
that exists. There is not currently a vacuum of male
representation in sport. There is not a vacuum or historic
precedent of men not being in leadership positions that women
and men can see. So if you're talking about why
(30:20):
it's great to add a female coach to a men's team,
there are myriad ways that that is necessary and beneficial
that don't apply in reverse the other way because they
are already seeing and exposed to a million different male
leadership models across the space, and usually in their coaching
coming up and everywhere else. Do we hold it against
spaces that are not making enough of an effort or
at least not getting the outcome, or at least not
(30:42):
resulting in enough women coaches. Like I mentioned, Unrivaled is
for women by women, and yet four of the six
head coaches are men. The WNBA is getting further away
from diversity in terms of both race and gender in
terms of their head coaching. Do we hold these places
feet to the fire or do we look at it
in cycles and give them the benefit of the doubt
(31:02):
that that's what the interviews came up with.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Oh, I definitely think we should hold them accountable. You
look at what happened at Phoenix last year when they
had a coaching changed. They not only hired a man
who had no experience with coaching women, but he was
the highest bided coach in the new UNBI. Now how
is that possible? So, you know, was there a public outcry?
I didn't feel it. I mean, I think there was
(31:24):
a lot of things said behind closed doors, But you know,
and then the team was not very successful. So what
are we looking at now? And I think the other
problem is a lot of teams look and say, you
know what, hired a woman, tried that didn't work. Hired
a man. I mean, you know, but never say that
when it's a guy. You know, we are like representing
(31:45):
our entire gender every time we take a jump.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Yeah, it's so true. You know. One of the things
that was the biggest change in the makeup gender makeup
of college women's sports was money. Historically it was predominant women,
and it was back with Pat Summit had to do
the laundry and coach the team. Right, you start making money,
men are like that looks nice over there, They get
hired more, and bam, all of a sudden, we have
(32:09):
all these women's teams being coached by men instead. There's
also that disparity between the professional and college ranks. Historically,
hoops coaching jobs have been more financially desirable than coaching
in the WNBA. The best college coaches are making more
money than most WNBA head coaches. USA Today reported eighteen
college coaches last year had an annual based salary of
(32:30):
more than a million. As far as we know, just
Nate Tibbets you just mentioned and Becky Hammond make that much.
How do you think that paid disparity plays into whether
coaches decide to coach in college or the W And
is that something that the W needs to address in
order to draw the kind of candidates that might go elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Well, I think the W could address that, but I
think we're going to see very soon coaches leaving college.
We have two of them already this year leaving the
college game and heading to the WNBA because of n
and the transfer portal. I think, especially some of the
older coaches that are looking in saying this in the
job I signed up for, I really want to teach,
(33:08):
you know, I really feel like I'm an educator as
much as a coach. And now it's all about who's
got the most money, and that's really not what amateur
athletics was supposed to be about. So I think we
will see some coaches moving on like the two that
did it this year, and see what kind of success
they had, and that could be I can see women
(33:29):
being driven out of the game because they don't want
to deal with all the money issues, the transfer stuff.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
We were talking earlier about how money might change some
of the investments and more parody across the college space.
There is a potential, too, for another distribution of money
across the college spase. The twenty twenty five NCAA Convention
is this week. Full membership is expected to vote on
whether to approve a women's basketball distribution fund, which is
called the Unit. If you haven't heard of the Unit,
(33:57):
the context is basically, since ninety one, NCAA has paid
conferences for the games their teams play during March Madness.
So you earn a unit at about two million dollars
each for every game they play during the tournament, and
then over the next six years, the conferences decide how
to allocate the money to each school. So SEC got
sixteen units last year. That's about thirty two million for
the men's basketball teams over the previous six years, but
(34:20):
no women's teams in the SEC have earned any money
from that. Even though the game Cocks made the Final
four for four straight years won two titles, that doesn't
make the school money. Now, this is something I've railed
against for years, because how do you incentivize investment in
your women's team if you have nothing to show for it?
When they have great success, and on the men's side,
you're constantly getting paid every time your team approves. So
the NCAA membership can vote to change that this week.
(34:43):
The amount for the women's tournament is not surprisingly far
less than what the men's would make. It would be
about fifteen million allocated from this tournament compared to two
hundred and twenty million on the men's side. But it's
a start. Do you think that that needs to happen?
Do we need to start showing schools if you care
about women's sports and your teams do well, it will
help you financially.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Absolutely, it's been a long time coming. I think Charlie
Baker's really done a great job as ahead of the
nc DOUBLEA. He is very pro women and pro equality.
And you're right, it's such a small number. I mean,
you take fifteen million. If you divide it by thirty
two conferences, or even even if you went to sweet sixteen,
you get a million dollars for your conference. How much
(35:22):
is these school going to gates? Some of these leagues
have eighteen teams, so you know, but I think it's
a good starting point that the other issue is how
are they gonna enhance that every year. I think there
was like a percentage it's going to go up four
percent every year or six or whatever. That's not very much.
I mean we need to double it every year, and
we need to try to catch up. They certainly have
enough money on the men's side's let's share that pot.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Well, and particularly as the numbers continue to be less
jarring in favor of the men. Last year, the women's
final game, the championship game, got better ratings than the men.
There are far more household names on the women's side
because as the one and done situation on the men's
side means that a star is in and out and
moved on before you've had a chance to really learn
(36:05):
about them. On the women's side, we are getting players
like Juju Watkins, for instance, who had such a spectacular
freshman year that were sophomore year and she has already
known and starring across the space, drawing fans, drawing interest
that should be viewed in a way that we for
years have ignored. On the women's side, This value that
they're bringing to their schools, and to do it by
(36:26):
virtue of tournament appearances and success just makes sense. When
you're doing it on the men's side. One last question
about the sort of NCAA we've seen over the last
couple of years, beginning really with the independent investigation into
the rights values of the women's tournament, where they realize
that they at the time said it was worth about
eighty million a year to have the rights to the
women's tournament, with upwards of one hundred and ten million
(36:48):
in value per year, and they were being coupled with
all the rights to the other national titles for about
six million. It was an absolute disgrace, and for a
place that's really known to care mostly about money in
the NCUBA in a lot of ways, for them to
be losing that much money just told you how much
the misogyny and the antiquatedy is about the value of
(37:09):
women's sports were baked in that they didn't even have
a belief that they were missing out on so much.
So let's talk about now the idea that they are
separating the rights packages. They're actually looking at the women's
tournament as a money maker, they're actually looking at the
valuation realistically. But that number, that eighty one to one
hundred and twelve million, that was sort of ignored instead
(37:30):
they agreed to continue bundling it with other NCAA championships
as part of an eight year deal with ESPN. Nine
hundred and twenty million dollars. Sounds like a big number,
but that's all of them. Do you think the women's
tournament should have just been sold separately? Do you think
they should have looked at that valuation and said, let's
actually get out there and see what we can get
for this product.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
I think that was the hope of most of the people,
and the Women's Coaches Association and people familiar with what
we're doing here. I think everybody wanted us to go out,
be separate, stand on our own, see what we could do.
I don't know what happened in the negotiations. Obviously it
did not come to fruition, but I really do have
faith in Charlie Baker and where he has taken women's basketball,
(38:10):
So I hope that in the future there was a plan.
But I think Camlyn Clark changed the game. I mean
she changed everything. We were playing in arenas that were
probably too small, you know, by the time, but you know,
you have to make those decisions five years out. Before
she even got to Iowa. The decision was made where
they're going to play the NCAA tournament. So I think
that we were maybe a little short sighted with our vision,
(38:31):
and now I think we've seen what we can be.
I think we're finally at that point where so many
women in my generation are saying, I knew what would happen.
I'm glad it happened in my lifetime, and now let's
build on that.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Yeah. I would like to see some failures in the
opposite direction where they're like, oops, we went too big.
Yes we didn't sell out, like how we don't see
that often. Usually what we see as well sold out
in twenty four hours. Oh well you could have gone
even bigger. Do it next time? Right? Yeah? Well, coach,
I mean, I know you've got the ACC show, you're
doing some stuff ESPN. I know you have earned retirement
(39:02):
and to do nothing but eat bombbonds all day and
sit marks. But please keep your voice in these spaces.
Get Charlie on the phone as often as possible. Talk
to the people in decision making spaces, because your voice
is so needed, and we are at this precipice of major,
major change that could get much much bigger. But we
need people to not drop the ball in these opportunities,
(39:23):
and I trust you and I would follow you into battle,
so you know, make sure you're around when these conversations
are being had.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Thanks Sarah, I feel the same about you. I love
your voice. You are doing your best and we all
need to get on board.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Thanks again to coach for taking the time. If you
want to watch that great viral speech again, we'll link
to it in the show notes, as well as an
essay from Director of Women's Coaches and Executives at Wasserman
Emily Joe Roberts about investing in women coaches, and we'll
put the link to the co leadership essay I mentioned
from my friend Linda Lou as well. We got to
take another quick break stick around welcome back slices. We
(40:05):
always love that you're listening and we love to hear
from you, so hit us up on email good game
at wondermedianetwork dot com or leave us a voicemail at
eight seven two two oh four point fifty seventy and
don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. It's easy. Watch
folks setting up fake GoFundMe accounts in the wake of
the California fires rating minus infinity Karma points review. Please
(40:30):
be careful when showing your support for victims of the
LA fires. Be sure to give to links that go
to organizations, not individuals, unless you know the person directly.
There are even some accounts using real victims that then
divert the money to a scammer instead. People are truly
the worst, but giving supplies and funds and ensuring that
they go to the right people is the only way
(40:51):
to counteract their evil, So do please get involved. Just
quadruple check your links and your recipients. Now's your turn,
rate and review. Thanks for listening, See you tomorrow. Good Game, Muffett,
Good Game, neel Ivy you gender bias. Good Game with
Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership
with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us
(41:13):
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network, our producers are
Alex Azzie and Misha Jones. Our executive producers are Christina Everett,
Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan, and Emily Rudder. Our editors are
Emily Rudder, Britney Martinez, Grace Lynch, and Lindsay Crawdowell. Production
assistants from Lucy Jones and I'm Your Host Sarah Spain.
Host
Sarah Spain
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!