On August 5, 2014, the San Antonio Spurs released the name of their newest employee: Becky Hammon. Gregg Popovich, Head Coach of the Spurs for the past twenty years, hired Becky Hammon as a full time Assistant Coach for the NBA team. She will officially join the coaching staff once her own basketball season finishes. Hammon will be the first woman working full time for an NBA coaching staff.
Hammon has been a part of the basketball world all of her life. With her incredible resume, it is no surprise she was hired. One of Hammon’s greatest successes was Colorado State inducting her into the Hall of Fame for her incredible contribution as a guard on the basketball team. She also helped Russia win a bronze medal in the 2008 Olympics, she played for Russia in the 2012 Olympics. She played sixteen seasons in the WNBA, received seven all star selections and she was named one of the top fifteen female basketball players of all time. This incredible experience, along with her knowledge and understanding of the game and communication skills convinced Popovich that Hammon was the best person for the job.
By being the first full time female assistant coach for a NBA team, Hammon is making history. Hammon’s coaching job with the Spurs puts her on the same level as the other male assistant coaches already on the team. Previously, Lisa Boyer was an assistant coach for the Cleveland Cavaliers, but she was a part-time volunteer for the team and only coached at home games, making Hammon the first full-time female coach.
Hammon attributes her ability to work as a coach in the NBA to all of the other women who worked before her. In a press conference, she said women like Lisa Boyer paved the way for her, and she is “reaping benefits of all their hard work and labor.” In this press conference, Hammon compared her hiring to other firsts in the history of female workers, such as the first female doctor and the first female lawyer. She is helping to prove that women can do everything men can do; therefore, they deserve to have equal opportunities. Hammon made it possible for other women to coach for the NBA in the future.
Hammon’s position as an assistant coach not only changes the future for women, but it also changes the future of the basketball organization as a whole. Her addition to the coaching staff changed the perception of the Spurs, and they now appear to be a more progressive and unconventional team. Hiring a female coach is radically different than anything any other professional teams have ever done. Other teams will probably be inspired by the Spurs to hire female coaches in the upcoming years.
Having a female employee makes an organization, which previously had been full of men for no particular reason, appear more open and accepting to women. This foreshadows the hiring of many more full-time female employees in the NBA in the next few decades. Coach Popovich is a cutting edge coach in hiring Hammon; he ignored her gender and focused on the fact that she would be a great addition to his team. Hammon commented on the monumental magnitude of her hiring when in an interview with Nancy Armour (USA Today Sports) she said, “It just seems so impossible to happen. Just because it never has.”
Hammon has had an incredible career as a collegiate and professional basketball player and now her future suggests she will have an amazing career as a NBA coach. She is a trailblazer in every sense of the term. •
