ALBANY — When Coach Felisha Legette-Jack was fired by Indiana after the 2011-12 season, it only reinforced a disappointing reality across the women’s college basketball landscape.
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As Richard Lapchick’s study made clear in 2017, just 6.9 percent of coaches across the 94 major college schools he surveyed were people of color. And this stat is remarkable, considering the large number of minority, particularly African-American participation in the game: 27 of the 94 schools had an entirely white staff.
So when Buffalo made a run to the Sweet 16 this year, ending Saturday with a 79-63 loss to South Carolina, it represented more than just an ascendant mid-major power in the game. More schools with an opportunity to play into the second weekend means more schools with an opportunity to tap into the enormous talent pool overlooked for reasons both cyclical and sinister.
It was not lost on Legette-Jack that she was one of only two women of color coaching in this year’s Sweet 16, nor that if women of color seldom get a first chance at a head job, they almost never get a second bite at the apple.
“I have some really amazing colleagues that look like me,” Legette-Jack said following the game. “I have so many friends that had an opportunity and they lose their opportunities and never be coming back up at all.”
Then Legette-Jack took the opportunity to highlight colleagues of hers, like South Carolina assistant Jolette Law or recently-fired Cincinnati head coach Jamelle Elliott, the latter “who played at a high school gym and at the end was asked to leave.”
Legette-Jack continued, “I’m saddened by it. I understand the problem. I know that the majority of women basketball players look like me. I think that these young women, if we really care about them as people, that they will have role models that look like them. Because they are going to play four years for whomever, and then they get an opportunity to go in this world, and they are not going to find anybody that looked like them, and they are going to have to figure out how to navigate at a different level.”
She explained exactly what is at stake for her, and for every head coach who is fighting to change the perception of who the leader is, of who other young women grow up listening to, and what constitutes a leader in 2018 America.
This hit me hard. Hope it had the same effect on everyone else. It is absolutely necessary and that is one of the reasons that drives me as well!! A minority female head coach that excels after given another chance along with being an awesome mom...you are a gem @UBCoachJack! pic.twitter.com/Flq0ACtstD
— Jackie Smith Carson (@JackieCarson22) March 24, 2018
“I hope that if these coaches that see me who resurged themselves or herself into another opportunity and try to make the most of it, I hope they get encouraged and understand: The fight isn’t going to easy. It’s necessary. It’s necessary not just for you and your sadness and you and your fire and you and your woe-is-me,” Legette-Jack said.
“The fight is for the next young lady that needs a person who looks like her to rise above and to be coached up and create a foundation so that she can become the coo, the CFO of something very big. It’s important that they stay in the race and keep fighting. We see them. You’re out there. Keep fighting. Go forward.”