Simple Observations of A Div 1 Women’s Basketball Coach

We often drive into Boston to watch sporting events at Boston College, my wife’s alma mater.  We like to watch the female sports with our teen daughter as a way of reinforcing in her mind that it is okay to be physically active.

So this past Sunday, we caught BC Women’s Basketball vs. Georgia Tech.  As you can imagine, when I got to games, at any level, I tend to watch the coaches as much as the athletes.  Hey, what can I say, it’s free research!

The BC coach, Sylvia Crawley, has a great reputation on and off the court among, at least, this BC household.  It was great to observe her and how she engaged with her team and her coaching staff during the game.  Coach Crawley was calm throughout the game right up till the end when the the BC loss was evident.  She clearly communicated with her players and assistants.  Of note, I found of great interest was the manner in which she ran her timeouts.  First, the defensive coach, Timothy Eatman,  talked to the players while Coach Crawley met with the other assistants to the side.  Only in the last part of the timeout did she engage her team.

This struck me as very interesting.  My first assumption would be that Coach Crawley is confident enough that she does not have to be in control at all times, and does not have a mega ego to feed.  The second assumption I made is that she is investing in her assistants.  She clearly engages them for input and allows them to coach.  Of course, this all has to be based upon trust that has been built over months and years of work.