*Now that the first openly gay player, Jason Collins, has seemingly been accepted into the NBA, now comes word of a female filling one of the league’s coaching vacancies.
The San Antonio Spurs have just hired Becky Hammon as an assistant coach. Yep, Hammon becomes only the second female to coach and sit on the bench of the male dominated NBA.
It’s going to be interesting to see how that works out.
As a 5-foot-6 point guard, decorated WNBA veteran Becky Hammon has never had the experience of shattering a backboard with a dunk.
She’s busting through the glass ceiling instead.
The San Antonio Spurs hired Hammon as an assistant coach on Tuesday, making her the first full-time, paid female assistant on an NBA coaching staff. When Hammon retires from her 16-year WNBA career at the end of the San Antonio Stars’ season, she will immediately move to the staff of the defending NBA champions, working with the revered Gregg Popovich on scouting, game-planning and the day-to-day grind of practice like no woman has ever done before.
“Nothing in my life has really ever been easy. I’ve always been someone who did it uphill,” Hammon said. “I’m up for challenges. I’m up for being outside the box, making tough decisions and challenges. … And I’m a little bit of an adrenaline junkie. Throw those all in there and this was the perfect challenge and opportunity.”
That makes her fit right in with the Spurs, an organization with a reputation for bold decisions. Popovich and general manager R.C. Buford have long been at the forefront of the league’s international influx and earlier this summer hired European coaching legend Ettore Messina as an assistant
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