The coach that helped Kara Lawson construct Duke again right into a contender

GREENSBORO, N.C. — It had been 19 years since Tia Jackson minimize down a web.

Again then, in 2006, she was an assistant coach for Gail Goestenkors’ Duke Blue Devils, and the group led by Monique Currie and Lindsay Harding improbably defeated UConn within the Bridgeport, Connecticut regional in time beyond regulation. The victory marked Duke’s fourth journey to the Remaining 4.

That was arguably the final nice period of Duke girls’s basketball. They’ve gained since then, after all. The Blue Devils went to Elite Eights and had been NCAA event regulars with groups coached by Joanne P. McCallie that had been led on the court docket by the likes of Chelsea Grey and Elizabeth Williams. However the consistency of Duke successful at a excessive stage waned. After lacking the Large Dance in 2019, the McCallie period ended in the summertime of 2020 as she resigned amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Duke turned to Kara Lawson to resurrect this system and restore it to prominence. A former participant for the legendary Pat Summitt at Tennessee, Lawson had coached with Group USA and within the NBA with the Boston Celtics, however had no school teaching expertise. As she was assembling her employees, Lawson discovered somebody who had it in boatloads.

So, Tia Jackson returned to Duke that summer time to assist Lawson construct.

And now, 5 years into Lawson’s tenure, a championship has returned to Cameron Indoor Stadium too.

Jackson received to climb a ladder with a pair of scissors in her hand once more on Sunday, March 9, on the Greensboro Coliseum, because the third-seeded Blue Devils gained the ACC Match title by beating native rival N.C. State 76-62 behind 22 factors and 10 rebounds in a spectacular off-the-bench effort from sophomore Oluchi Okananwa, who took dwelling event MVP honors.

It marked Duke’s first ACC Match title since 2013. The Blue Devils gained it by beating the highest seeded groups, Notre Dame within the semifinals and N.C. State within the championship.

Now, they’re a No. 2 seed in March Insanity, internet hosting first- and second-round video games this weekend, and so they appear primed for a deep run within the event.

Duke is again on prime in girls’s school basketball. Just like the Blue Devils did beneath Goestenkors, they appear to be one of many sport’s signature applications once more. The connecting throughline is the presence of Jackson, sitting 5 seats down from the scorer’s desk on the bench.

From Lawson’s first season in Durham 5 years in the past to now, Jackson is the lone assistant coach that is still from her authentic employees. And Jackson – who comes from a humble background, rising up on Maryland’s Jap Shore and enjoying at tiny Mardela Excessive College the place she remodeled herself into the area’s greatest girls’s basketball prospects many years in the past – will deflect credit score for getting Duke again to contending standing.

However Lawson is greater than keen to heap reward on her.

“She’s been an important determine in my development and maturation as a head coach,” Lawson advised SB Nation. “From the start, she taught me how you can be a coach in school. I do know basketball – it’s not that – however all of the issues round it, proper? All of the issues that go into operating a program. She’s been beneath a number of the greats, and so, it’s simply knowledge and information from her.”

Duke’s gamers are keen to go with Jackson too.

“I can say a lot about Coach Tia,” ACC Rookie of the Yr Toby Fournier advised SB Nation. “I like her with all my coronary heart. She’s been with me by way of all of the powerful instances, and I can’t thank her sufficient for all the pieces she’s performed. And I’m additionally excited to proceed to develop together with her, as a result of I do know that this 12 months I’ve seen lots of progress in my sport, and she or he’s helped me proceed to grow to be the participant that I need to turn into.”

Mitchell Northam / SB Nation

When Lawson was employed at Duke in July 2020, Jackson was one of many first calls she made. Her fame in teaching circles was properly often known as an amazing recruiter and a trusted advisor. At that time, she was Katie Meier’s prime lieutenant at Miami, however had additionally labored for Corridor of Famers Tara VanDerveer and C. Vivian Stringer, along with her earlier stint in Durham beneath Goestenkors.

Her stint as a head coach at Washington was an unsuccessful one, however Jackson is aware of how you can run a program. She is aware of all of the ins and outs of faculty basketball. She’s collected perception and information from a number of the best coaches the game has ever seen. Earlier than coming again to Duke, Jackson had helped information 9 groups to the NCAA event in 20 seasons as an assistant coach.

When Jackson’s cellphone rang in the summertime of 2020, she was intrigued by two issues. First, for the chance to work for somebody like Lawson. And second, to return to a spot the place she had beforehand loved a lot success. It was a straightforward resolution.

“It was a no brainer to come back again. One, to work for Kara. She’s an icon in our sport. She’s confirmed it over the past 5 years. Her management, her path, it’s been wonderful. She’s introduced in the correct folks. Our employees is excellent,” Jackson advised SB Nation. “The sorts of children we deliver into Duke, they’re simply outstanding people. So, to come back and work for her, and to have the ability to do it right here – my second time being at Duke – it’s sort of the right mixture.”

Whereas Lawson initially wished Jackson on her employees due to what she noticed on paper – her years of invaluable expertise – she has discovered over the previous 5 seasons that Jackson brings one thing else to the desk: a willingness to problem Lawson and inform her when she’s mistaken.

“Coach Tia may be very loyal. She’s going to inform me the reality,” Lawson stated. “She’s going to inform me once I make errors. And also you want that as a head coach. You don’t want simply ‘sure’ folks. You want folks that decision you in your stuff generally. So, we’re not right here with out her. I’m actually not right here with out her. She’s as vital a determine in these final 5 years as anyone in our program.”

Mitchell Northam / SB Nation

Lawson’s begin to being a head coach was a bumpy one. Simply 4 video games into her first season, Duke canceled its 2020-21 marketing campaign due to the influence the COVID-19 pandemic had on this system. So, technically, when the season ended, Duke was the worst group within the ACC. The Blue Devils went 17-13 the following season, then the 12 months after that – her third – they broke by way of and made the NCAA event. This 12 months marks the Blue Devils’ third consecutive journey to the Large Dance.

Alongside the way in which, Lawson tailored and altered her model and strategy as a coach. She had to determine who she wished to encompass herself with and her teaching employees modified. Gamers entered and left this system and she or he needed to resolve what qualities she was going to emphasise in recruiting. She received extra comfy in bantering with the native media. And her group embraced a defense-first mindset.

“I’m glad I got here right into a state of affairs the place we had been the worst group within the league and we needed to construct it, as a result of then you need to actually take into consideration foundationally, what you’re going to be about,” Lawson stated. “You need to take into consideration the way you’re going to construct it. You recognize, it’s not a rework, it’s a construct. So we thought of that, after which we tried to be as calculated as we may about the kind of gamers that we wished to usher in.”

From final season to this one, Duke was certainly one of simply three Energy 4 applications that didn’t lose a single participant to the switch portal. On this period of faculty basketball, that’s not simply uncommon, it’s extraordinary.

“That’s a robust assertion to what our gamers really feel about Duke and the event,” Lawson stated. “And that’s the kind of program we need to be. We need to proceed to simply develop our gamers and proceed to get continuity.”

Added Jackson: “This run has been wonderful. And I can’t simply say this 12 months – the final couple years this group has hung collectively. It’s uncommon, and it reveals. The resilience of this group, the connectivity… I get emotional simply enthusiastic about them. They’ve been an superior group to teach.”

In some ways, Duke is synonymous with school basketball. And certain, what Mike Krzyzewski completed on the boys’s aspect of the game is an enormous a part of that, however the girls’s program has additionally skilled excessive ranges of success in the previous couple of many years. Goestenkors and McCallie mixed for eight ACC Match titles. Duke cares about girls’s basketball in a approach that lots of faculties within the nation don’t. They’re invested in it. That’s why when McCallie resigned in the course of the summer time amidst a worldwide pandemic, they took the most important swing they might, luring Lawson away from the NBA.

It had been 12 years between ACC Championships for the Blue Devils. As Duke gamers made snow angels within the confetti on the ground of the Greensboro Coliseum, athletic director Nina King – who, regardless of being the deputy again in 2020, led the search that ended with the Blue Devils hiring Lawson – cracked a smile that would have lit up the entire constructing. The story of girls’s school basketball within the trendy period is suffering from tales about Duke. Now, collectively, King, Lawson, Jackson and this group are within the midst of including their very own chapter.

And alongside the way in which, Jackson has consistently been in Lawson’s nook and in her ear. Watch a Duke sport and also you’ll see the 52-year-old spring up from the bench and dart into the coaches field and faucet Lawson on the shoulder. She is likely to be providing recommendation or a tip, and even some light criticism. And Lawson may give it proper again.

Like Jackson stated, it’s the right mixture, and one which has labored for the Blue Devils.

“She colours outdoors the traces, and we like that,” Jackson stated of Lawson. “She challenges everyone, from the gamers to the employees, and we proceed to get higher and higher. I’m so grateful for her simply sort of nudging us daily and holding us on our toes and holding us collectively and holding us hungry. Once we maintain that blend collectively, we’re fairly fearless.”

One of many few different those that has been at Duke all 5 seasons with Lawson and Jackson is level guard Vanessa de Jesus. She initially dedicated to Duke when McCallie was nonetheless the coach, however has caught round for the long term beneath Lawson.

She too acknowledges what Jackson means to this system.

“Coach Tia means all the pieces,” de Jesus stated. “She’s so humorous, she’s a jokester, and she or he’s sort of just like the mother of the group. I feel she’s one person who retains us collectively. She brings a lot knowledge from all her years of teaching, and I’m simply blissful she’s right here at Duke.”

Mitchell Northam / SB Nation

After ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips had handed the trophy over to the Blue Devils and after the commemorative hats and shirts got out, it was time for Duke to chop down the nets in Greensboro. Earlier than the primary participant climbed the ladder to begin reducing on the nylon, Lawson stationed herself proper in entrance of it.

As every participant and employees member climbed the ladder, Lawson handed over the scissors after which started pointing and shouting directions. Nobody was to go wild and minimize nevertheless massive a bit they wished. There was a course of to web reducing, and Lawson had performed this earlier than, many instances. Whereas enjoying for Pat Summitt at Tennessee, she gained an SEC Match and went to 3 Remaining Fours. She gained a championship within the WNBA with the now-defunct Sacramento Monarchs.

If there was one factor Lawson knew how you can do higher than anybody else within the constructing on that Sunday, it was how you can minimize down a web. And so, each one who climbed the ladder obtained and adopted her directions.

“I feel it’s the primary web reducing for lots of them, so I simply wished to indicate them the way it’s performed or speak them by way of it,” Lawson stated. “The heights factor is an actual factor once you rise up there, and generally it may be disorienting.”

Hours earlier than Lawson gained her first championship as a coach, the one that taught her how you can take a pair of scissors to a basketball hoop was on her thoughts.

“I positively considered Coach Summit,” Lawson stated. “Undoubtedly considered her this morning and the way excited she can be for the chance that we had. And that defensive efficiency within the second half, man, that was near the Tennessee protection again within the day. It was fairly good.”

Jackson by no means labored for Summitt, however the late legendary coach knew who she was. Jackson gained the one-on-one competitors at Summitt’s camp in Knoxville as a highschool junior in 1988. A 12 months later, Summitt traveled to Mardela Springs – inhabitants 354 – to recruit the participant who would finish her highschool profession with greater than 3,000 factors. As a senior, Jackson averaged 43.2 factors and 19.1 rebounds per sport.

Maybe the explanation why Lawson and others revere Jackson a lot as a coach is as a result of her first two had been a number of the greatest ones. Earlier than she went on to play for C. Vivian Stringer at Iowa – the place she helped the Hawkeyes go to the Remaining 4 in 1993 – Jackson discovered the sport from Barbara McCool. As a excessive schooler, Jackson towered over her, however she in all probability wouldn’t have turn into the participant she was or coach she is as we speak with out the fiery McCool guiding her each step of the way in which. McCool drove Jackson to camps throughout the nation within the late Nineteen Eighties, designed exercises for her and minimize up movie of her highlights to ship to school coaches. In these days, lengthy earlier than YouTube and cell telephones, Jackson isn’t seen by the likes of Summitt, Stringer and Muffet McGraw with out McCool’s assist. Jackson’s profession in basketball started when McCool ran into her within the hallway as a freshman.

“Do you play basketball?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Nicely, you do now.”

Jackson’s No. 11 jersey now hangs in that faculty after she gained three Bayside Convention Participant of the Yr awards. McCool coached practically till the day she died – in 2009 on the age of 71 after a battle with most cancers – and gained 605 video games, greater than another ladies basketball coach on Maryland’s Jap Shore. And Jackson is one of the best participant she ever had. By means of teaching, McCool’s legacy continues on in her.

“I strive my greatest to make her proud, displaying some examples of that in what I do,” Jackson stated.

After all of the Duke gamers minimize their Lawson-approved piece of nylon from the rim, the employees and assistant coaches lined up. Jackson was the second-to-last individual to climb the ladder. She trimmed her piece off, smiled and waved it round, then descended. She hugged Lawson in a protracted embrace, then handed the scissors over to her. Like she noticed Summitt do a number of instances, Lawson eliminated the remainder of the web, smiled and laughed and she or he twirled it round atop the ladder.

Standing off to the aspect close to a pile of confetti was Elizabeth Williams, beaming from ear to ear. She was on the final Duke group that completed this feat. She climbed a ladder on this constructing to trim down a web. The previous four-time All-American and a four-time ACC Defensive Participant of the Yr had waited a very long time to see her Blue Devils do it once more.

“It’s actually particular to see. Clearly, this program means rather a lot to me,” Williams advised SB Nation. “It’s cool to see it come full circle and to see how Kara has sort of constructed this program again up.”

However an even bigger court docket awaits the Blue Devils. For Lawson, Jackson, Fournier, de Jesus and the remainder of this Duke group, there are extra video games to win, more durable opponents to defeat and, doubtlessly, extra nets to chop down.

“We’re nonetheless making an attempt to get to the highest. We’re clearly proving it,” Jackson stated. “However on the finish of the day, the NCAA event is correct across the nook and we’re not performed, we’re positively not completed. We’re going to get again to work.”