A Day As A WNBA Coach…

Hi everyone,
I’ve been in France for more than a week now…My summer as a wnba coach in San Antonio was an amazing experience that I would like to share as one of my first post.

Dan Hugues asked me to be part of the staff last year as an intern and I accepted right away. He told me that my role would be to work the players individually. I was responsible for every pre-practice and the main player I was responsible of was Sophia Young.

Sophia Young is the face of the team with Becky Hammon.She is a four times WNBA All Star so it was a great honor for me to work with her..

The day for a WNBA coach goes this way: I arrive at the gym at 9:30am. 10am coaches meeting where we discuss the things we need to improve on, things we will work on in practice, we talk about what each coach needs to concentrate on and the strategy we would put in place for the next game.
In our coaching staff, Dan Hugues was the head coach but each coach had a lot of responsibilities.

Practice starts at 11am but some players come at 10 to work on their game. At 10.30,it will be a mandatory pre- practice for the younger players of the team.
Pre- practice is a time where players work only on their individual skills. It is a great time to improve.

I work with Sophia Young after practice. Sophia had one of her best year 16.3pts(52%); 7.2rbds. She currently won All WNBA team and All WNBA defensive team. This means she is considered one of the most complete players in the entire WNBA. Sophia is a short post player 6-1(1,85m) but she works everyday on her individual skills and it allows her to be a great scorer in the best league in the world.

After my workout with Sophia, we usually have a post- practice meeting which is typically more short than the pre- practice meeting.  We discuss certain things we saw in practice and how the day went and what we need to think about for the next day.  In these meetings it made me realize that basketball was a business but a business to get Better for every single person, not just the players but also for Coaches and the Staff.

My day will be done around 2.30pm,sometimes 3pm.  But honestly if basketball is your passion the time goes by so fast.

So that’s my official day on non game days.  I usually have time where I can go to the gym or do leisure things like that but my night usually ends with me watching games or film of us playing, trying to improve our team/players as much as possible. The hours of a coach are continuous but it feels very rewarding when the girls execute your game plans or show what you teach them on the court and are very receptive.

Now I am back in Montpellier and I am still working out players but I will tell you more about that in my next post

😉