Throughout its existence, the WNBA has been made up primarily of Black women players. However, that does not extend to the league’s coaches, and Dallas Wings superstar Paige Bueckers thinks that’s a problem.
While Black women have made up most of the players in the WNBA since the league began in 1997, that is not true of the coaches throughout the league, as the WNBA does not have a single Black woman head coach. During a recent interview, Bueckers spoke out against that.
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Following Sunday’s game against the Chicago Sky, Bueckers was asked about the “process” she hopes to see in terms of hiring Black women to head coaching jobs, with the WNBA not having a single Black coach throughout the league.
Bueckers, who is white, said that she would like to see “equal opportunity and no discrimination based on what you look like, who you like, and anything of that nature,” when it comes to the league making hires. She added that she thinks the league was “built on” the contributions of Black women.
“I think Black women — specifically, I grew up with a lot of prominent Black women in my life that were very important to me in how I was raised and how I grew up, being my stepmom, my AAU coach,” Bueckers said via ESPN. “So I understand how amazing they are and how they should get the same equal opportunity as a white woman, as a white man to be an important piece of this league.
“It was built on a lot of Black women — this league was — so it’s definitely right for them to get the same equal opportunity as everyone else.”
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While seven of the 15 coaches throughout the league are women, none of those coaches is a Black woman, despite Black women holding most of the roster spots in the WNBA. It sounds like Bueckers wants to change that.
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