Birthday Shenanigans, Coaching Nonsense, and WNBA High Jinks

Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're still reeling over meeting two fifths of Girls five EVA at the Hollywood Bowl this weekend. Shout out Paula Pell and Renee Eleise Goldsberry. Speaking of shouting, that's how my voice ended up like this birthday Shenanigans. On today's show, producer Mische will react to the start of the second half of the WNBA season, plus a notable first that we should all remember and an NWSL coaching announcement that has

Just a three year old team, she had been there since the start.

Last year, the Wave won the NWSL Shield, awarded to the club with the best regular season record, and Stony began this season by leading her side to a Challenge Cup win. So looking ahead, Landon Donovan has a lot to prove, given that he doesn't have very much coaching experience in general, and he has no experience.

Coaching the women's game.

From twenty twenty to twenty twenty two, he was the head coach and executive vice president of the now defunct San Diego Loyal There was a men's team that played in the Division two USL Championship League, and the lack of experience is probably why his head coach title was given an interim label. With a three win seven loss six straw record, San Diego's currently sitting tenth out of fourteen teams with ten regular season games remaining, land In

Finally, in Sportsmanship News.

Soccer legend Marta Fresh off and Olympic silver medal just got engaged to Orlando Pride teammate Kerrie Lawrence. No word yet on whether the engagement ring is silver or gold. Congrats to the happy couple. Okay, we're going to talk WNBA hoops in a minute, but first a few numbers from Olympic basketball that had us saying WTF, which means it's time for another what the fact?

So check this out.

Per Australian basketball coach Liz Mills at coach Underscore Liz Mills on Twitter, of the eighty one basketball coaches across the twenty four teams at the Paris Olympics, only twenty two point two percent were women. There were six female head coaches and twelve female assistant coaches in the women's competition. There were no female coaches as part of the staff for any of the men's teams.

And this isn't just a basketball or Olympic thing.

We took a look at college sports numbers and in the US, the percentage of women coaches is lower in college sports today than it was when Title nine was enacted in nineteen seventy two. So prior to Title nine's passing, more than ninety percent of women's collegiate sports teams were coached by women, but post nineteen seventy two and Title nine, as prestige, revenue and coaching salaries went up, men started to apply for and.

Get the jobs.

Over fifty years later, for all three nc DOUBLEA divisions, the number of women head coaches of women's teams has decreased to forty one percent, and the percentages decreased drastically

Welcome back, my little Orange slices.

It's time for a segment I just made up right now called Meshe's Minute.

Although it might be more like ten minutes or so.

It's been a loaded few days of WNBA action, and while I was participating in those aforementioned birthday shan hannigans, I know Mesh was glued to the TV for the return of the WNBA.

So we're coming off that.

Olympic break, and the twenty twenty four Paris Olympics featured thirty one current WNBA players. That obviously includes the twelve members of Team USA's five on five roster, plus the players that suited up for other national teams. They all returned stateside to join their well rested teammates and tip off the WNBA's second half, And in a few games since the restart, we've already seen a couple records broken by our favorite rookie duo, Kaitlyn Clark and Angel Reese.

In a loss.

On Thursday, Reese officially broke the Sky franchise record for offensive rebounds in a single season, previously held by the Great Sylvia Fowls. And the Sky still have fourteen more games to play this regular season, so Reese will be adding to it. And on Sunday, Kitlyn Clark broke t Cha Pennicero's record and is now first in all time rookie assists. And we know she's going to continue to add to that number because the Fever have twelve regular

Has it always been like that? Has it always been so quick?

Well?

Actually yeah since oh for every Olympic year, the W makes space for the Olympic break and the players have to jump right back into competition. So for example, Real twenty sixteen gold medal match versus Spain August twentieth, the first WNBA game back August Si Tokyo twenty twenty one gold medal match VERSU Japan August eighth, first w game

Yeah, or tanskin partying on stage with their favorite artists, because we saw a couple of those videos during the Olympics break too. Let's talk about those Team USA players. How are the teams that had a bunch of those players faring in their first game back. Does it feel like the Olympic workload slowed down some of those stars?

Short answer, yes, And what I think is coming down to is what teams also have.

Some depth that they can fall back on.

It's a team sport, right, You got five players out there, and some teams had a lot of those those starters in the lineup for Team USA.

But Yeah.

For me, New York seems to be faring the best, which is not necessarily surprising considering they came in to the Olympic break as the number one seed, and I had a chance to hop on with our good friend Erica Laala and they got to get up a podcast from New York Liberty Fans this past weekend, and a lot of what we talked about was Brianna Stewart, who was obviously on Team USA, and Sabrini and Escu just looking seamless in terms of their transition back to the

A lot freer.

We heard Sue Bird talk about Team USA basketball being uncomfortable if you're not a star.

That was kind of the position Sab was in.

But New York feels like she came back home and she's ready to settle back in.

Yeah. And then there's also, you know, whatever closeness they already had. Those players that go back to their teams were playing together in Paris and continuing to grow as sort of teammates even in a different situation, so they might actually benefit in some ways from a slightly different look at how they play with other players on the court, and then returning back to their w teams being able to use some of that information just to inform them.

A little bit.

But what was most notable to me about that was a player who wasn't at the Olympics that looked like she was shot out of the cannon in Caitlyn Clark. I think this is the first like two days in a row off she's.

Had in like a year. Yeah, and girl was on fire.

The court looked wide open, especially in the first half, and she was finding all of her teammates. She was hitting deep threes, Like I really am looking forward to seeing the second half of the season with Caitlyn based on what we saw off that first game back, which she was like, Okay, I'm rested, y'all better look out.

Yeah, and it's it's it's the whole team looks that way too, right, because they were all in that gym, jumped together and kicking their feet up, probably pool side at somebody's apartment, and you know that team likes to play with pace. They were all looking shot out of a cannon. And the way she's distributing and helping throw the needle there, I mean, they're gonna ruin somebody's day there's gonna they're gonna ruin somebody's day time.

Well, and that's a great point you made, because it obviously wasn't just Caitlin.

What we saw early in the season.

This occasionally turnovers, either because she was kind of a step ahead and her teammates weren't on the same page, or just that they couldn't finish on a pass or something that she made. But what I saw was these like football passes down the court, you know, sliding it between defenders, players being ready in those moments every single time.

That she fed them.

And if that team could take advantage of the way she sees the floor and Aliah Boston could be eaten like she was underneath. They're going to, like you said, be ruining some days and be a team to watch for the postseason, which I don't think at the beginning of the season, when they still looked pretty rough a on the edges, we thought they would be making this kind of jump.

Not at all, not at all.

And you know, it's also worth noting Melissa Smith, you know what I mean. She's another one of those unsung heroes who I think pops in to the scoreboard and stat leaders at the end of certain weekends, but can't forget about her, can't forget about Kelsey Mitch. Kelsey Mitchell twenty eight points next to Kaitlin Clark's twenty nine points.

So yeah, that team's got a lot of weapons.

It's just whether or not they can connect all the pieces to the puzzle before playoff time hits.

Any other stars from the Olympics that you saw shining. I know we talked earlier in the show about how the Liberty were able to beat up on the Aces because I mean not only players but their coach, you know, dealing with everything going on with Dereka Hamby. There's a lot going on for the Aces right now. Did it feel like that was noticeable in the games?

It did.

It felt like a lot of the same of what we saw in the first half of the season, Asia Wilson carrying a lot of that load, and frankly everybody else you know, still contributing but not being stars in the same way. And because that team, as opposed to the New York Liberty, don't have as much depth, you got to rely on those four. You got Jackie Young, you got Chelsea Gray, you got Asia Wilson, you got Kelsey Plump.

They carry a lot of the load.

Four starters who also played significant minutes, like not just sitting on the bench. And I want to talk about call because I know Co's been going off as well, hitting almost thirty points in her last two games back. But when you've got four players who all carried a lot of load internationally on that stage, you know you gotta expect this is gonna take a little bit of time.

But back to Kaw, Yeah, Khalia copper Man, she does not look tired at all. Maybe that one game she said, yep, she's.

Really reaping the benefits of not playing as many minutes and she's one of those microwave scorers. Any situation you put her in, if you need her to go get a bucket, She's gonna go get a bucket. So yeah, she's a big, a big piece for the Mercury.

What about those I mean, the Sky is the team that didn't send anybody. It's interesting with the team like that, especially that's young, and also that had a big trade happen right before the break, Yes to have time together and obviously we talked about Angel Reese going off. But that's an interesting team too that you know right now is sitting in a position to try to push for a playoff spot. What do you expect from them with the new look post Marina Maybray trade.

I mean, so, first of all, I don't know if we even really dove into that trade. I was shocked to hear about that, But they gained from that as well. I think Marina Maybury was ready to go and be on a ready contender kind of team. As far as Chicago goes, I think they're making space for Kennedy Carter to keep doing Kennedy Carter things and keep being a

In the post.

Camilla had a great game this past weekend, so I think she's starting to really get her feet under She was in and out of the lineup in the first half of the season. But another young team, like you said, who just has pieces that they're trying to fit together, They're gonna have some more trying times, I anticipate. I think Teresa Weatherspoon is the per perfect person to continue.

To lead that charge. But yeah, they're a wildcard to me.

They're a team that could either fall off the face of the earth in the second half of the season, or like Indiana, get back in the swing of things and ruin somebody's day.

As a sky fan, I was grateful for that game against the Sparks in the middle of the Mercury sandwich because you know, no, no offense to the Sparks, but you know, without cam Brink and you know, rebuilding year. Let's just say kindly about their six wins so far, and I don't think anybody wants to see that Mercury team twice in the first three games back from the break, so I was grateful for a.

Little bit of eating on the on the sparks. Anything else about.

The WNBA from Misha's lengthy minute, Well, I'm just thinking now that we're at the second half, the playoffs rider around the corner.

So something to look out for the first round is best of three in the top four teams in the league get to host that first game in the best of three. So you got Connecticut right now, Minnesota, Vegas, and Seattle all jockeying for those spots two through four because, as we know and talked about earlier in the show, the New York Liberty have secured their spot in the playoffs.

So keep an eye on those four teams.

And again, Indiana, are they gonna have something to say about that?

We'll see awesome stuff. Mesh, thanks for doing the work while.

I was doing other things. We got to take a break.

When we come back, we're going to welcome another member into the hallowed halls of the Good Game Hall of Fame.

You're back.

We're back to and it's time for the latest entry into our Good Game Hall of Fame. It's a place to remember and honor women's sports lore and history, and we're all quite familiar with the recent history and the success of our US women's national soccer team. This is a squad that has won nine World Championships, five Olympics, four Women's World Cups. Meanwhile, the rest of the world combined has won just eight major championships. So yeah, US

Team game wasn't all that long ago.

Exactly thirty nine years ago yesterday, that's right, over the weekend, on the same day yours truly was celebrating her birthday, the US women's national.

Soccer team celebrated its birthday too.

On August eighteen, nineteen to eighty five, the US women's national team played its first ever match, competing against Italy in Yesselo, Italy.

They lost one nothing.

Here are a few details from that game via Kaitlin Murray's book The National Team. Okay, so back in nineteen eighty five, the first Women's World Cup was still six years away and the first women's Olympic tournament was still over a decade away. That first US team, coached by Mike Ryan, included seventeen players who were selected from a

End quote.

So only two members from that original US women's national team roster, Michelle Akers and Lori Henry Ever played for the US again. Acres, of course, went on to have a legendary national team career, winning two World Cup titles and Olympic gold in nineteen ninety six and scoring one hundred and seven goals along the way. So Happy team birthday to Michelle Acres and the rest of that original squad. When we look at the powerhouse team of today, let's

I know I always do. See how easy that is.

Reviewer Jema Sue did it too, they said legacy building. As an elder millennial with Jen Alpha Kids, I grew up begging for coverage of women's sports. The ninety nine ers proved to me that women's sports were worth the coverage. Now my daughter doesn't even understand the time when women's sports weren't part of the zeitgeist. Do in part to pods like this one. Love starting every morning with this pod.

We do love the kind words. So thank you all Right now it's your turn slices. Maybe we'll read your review next.

Thanks as always for listening, See you tomorrow. Good game, Marta, good game, Carrie. Few vocal cords that react poorly to drinking too much and yelling loudly all weekend. Good game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.

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The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Median at Work, our producers are Alex Azzi and Misha Jones. Our executive producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan.

And Emily Rudder.

Our editors are Jenny Kaplan, Emily Rutterer, Britney Martinez and Grace Lynch. Production assistants from Lucy Jones and I'm Your Host Sarah Spain