Coaching Candidates Are Everywhere, If You Look

Maura McHugh was the first coaching casualty of 2003 when she was fired by Sacramento last week. It’s a safe bet she won’t be the last. Washington and San Antonio, finalists in the Eastern and Western conferences last year, are underachieving the same way Sacramento is; that would make their coaches, Marianne Stanley and Candi Harvey, vulnerable to being dismissed.

Sacramento and any other team contemplating a change should remember that good coaching is about knowledge of the game, an ability to teach and communication skills -- not about gender.

In this corner, the feeling persists that the WNBA will be the ceiling for female coaches, as far as the pro game goes.

Male coaches can still pursue jobs in the NBA and can use the WNBA to advance that cause. It’s not hard to imagine NBA owners considering the Sparks’ Michael Cooper and Detroit’s Bill Laimbeer as viable candidates for future jobs. Or remembering that New York’s Richie Adubato and Connecticut’s Mike Thibault have already worked in the league as a head or assistant coach.

It’s harder to imagine them giving the same consideration to Seattle’s Anne Donovan or Indiana’s Nell Fortner, although both have resumes chock full of national and international coaching experience.

You already can see other arguments coming. The women’s coaching pool is not as deep as the men’s. It’s harder to lure top female candidates, especially from the college ranks, primarily because the WNBA can’t begin to match the salaries of the Pat Summitts and Jody Conradts of the world.

To that I say, look in your backyard. There are quite a few good female assistant coaches or former players who have been around the WNBA several years, know the pro game and the people needed to play it, and are ready to move up.

Two of the league’s more recent hires, Suzie McConnell Serio in Minnesota and Trudi Lacey in Charlotte, are good examples. Both are having solid first years as WNBA coaches.

McConnell Serio was a two-time Olympian and played with Cleveland in the WNBA from 1998-2000. She also spent 13 years coaching high school basketball in Pittsburgh, winning more than 300 games.

Despite having only one recognizable star in the irrepressible Katie Smith, McConnell Serio has the 9-8 Lynx in fourth place in the West and only a game behind Houston for second. Minnesota is one win away from equaling its victory total from last year.

Lacey inherited a veteran team from Donovan when the latter took the Seattle job. But Charlotte was not getting a rookie coach in the strictest sense of the word. Lacey had been a head coach for eight seasons at South Florida. She spent time on the staffs of Maryland, the U.S. national team and the Sting the last two years.

Since losing its season opener to Washington, Charlotte has won 12 of its last 17 games and moved atop the East at the All-Star break. They may be playing the best ball in the league after the Sparks.

Need some other names? How about Phoenix assistant Carrie Graf? She worked in Seattle last year, spent three other years as an assistant in Phoenix (including 1998, when the Mercury went to the league championship series), was a head coach for seven years in Australia’s professional league and helped coach the 2000 Australian Olympic team that won the silver medal.

Furthermore, assistants such as San Antonio’s Tammi Reiss, Cleveland’s Janice Braxton, Houston’s Alisa Scott, New York’s Pat Coyle and Seattle’s Jessie Kenlaw, to name a few, could be ready to move up.

If they can get a chance.

When the 2003 season began, the coaches of the 14 teams were split evenly -- seven men and seven women. In the WNBA, that’s a good ratio to shoot for.