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 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 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 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 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. 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
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, 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 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 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. It's Muffett McGraw. What's up, coach?
I remember that. Wait, wait, don't tell me. That was so much fun. I'd love that show.
I was shocked to hear that the Lucy goosey or whatever rhyme was actually about hookers.
I had little to I know.
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.
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.
What's the show called, tell us?
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.
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 coach and recruiter?
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 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 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 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.
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.
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. 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 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, 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 total respect for her game.
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 of hoops they're playing.
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.
Wow.
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. 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.
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?
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?
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 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. 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 on that and defend that behavior. What did you make of that and how it's been responded to or maybe not responded to.
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. 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.
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
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.
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 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
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.
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 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?
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 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 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 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.
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 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 thing to focus in on that kind of opens the door for them. Do you agree?
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 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
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.
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 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?
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 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 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 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 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 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.
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?
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,
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 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 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
a lot of women. Bring them back like Becky Hammond, and let's get some really good quality coaches on the women's side.
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 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 or an outdated idea of what a good coach looks like? And how much do you think is about pipeline or other issues.
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, 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, 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.
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 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 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 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?
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 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 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 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.
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
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 create more space.
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 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 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.
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.
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 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
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.
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?
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 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 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.
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 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
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 that that's what the interviews came up with.
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 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 our entire gender every time we take a jump.
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 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 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.
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, 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 being driven out of the game because they don't want to deal with all the money issues, the transfer stuff.
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, 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 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. 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.
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
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.
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
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 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 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 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 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.
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, 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, 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.
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 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, 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.
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.
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 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
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