Becky Hammon continued to make history on Monday as she led the San Antonio Spurs to a NBA Las Vegas Summer League championship victory, becoming the first woman ever to do so…
And that title [Summer League head coach] is just an extension of her day job – as an assistant coach on Gregg Popovich’s team in San Antonio. Which, yes, when she was hired last August, she was named the first full-time female assistant NBA coach.
(Huffington Post, July 21, 2015)
I couldn’t be happier for Hammon. However, as giant a leap as this might be for her, it’s only one small step for gender equality in sports.
In fact, prevailing gender inequality was on display just last month. That’s when FIFA made the women play on artificial turf for the World Cup. This, despite the women making informed and indignant protests about the risk of injury doing so entailed.. After all, competing in soccer on artificial turf is akin to competing in Judo on concrete slabs….
By contrast, trust me folks, there would’ve been no Men’s World Cup last year if the men had to play on artificial turf. Granted, the discrimination against women in this case had a lot to do with the billions corporate sponsors have invested in men’s soccer.
If FIFA’s male-dominated executive committee had due regard for women’s soccer, however, I’m sure it could have prevailed upon sponsors to donate the money necessary to ensure that, like the men, the women had natural turf to play on for their World Cup. I digress….
The point is that it speaks volumes that we are hailing Hammon for coaching in the NBA’s Summer League, given that this is just Basketball’s version of Baseball’s minor leagues. Moreover, nothing betrays the chauvinism afoot quite like having a man as head coach not only of every NBA team, but of half of the WNBA teams as well.
Meanwhile, Hammon has demonstrated that women are perfectly capable of coaching in the NBA. To think otherwise is as sexist as thinking Blacks are incapable of playing in the NHL is racist.
For just as Blacks have proven that, if given the opportunity, they can play against the best hockey players, women would prove they can coach against the best NBA coaches too.