Seimone Augustus needs to be a head coach sometime. The WNBA legend is discovering her voice within the SEC with LSU

GREENVILLE, S.C. — Bob Starkey at all times thought that Seimone Augustus could be a coach someday.

After she completed her storied taking part in profession at LSU — leaving this system as a two-time Nationwide Participant of the 12 months, a four-time All-American, and having guided the Tigers to 3 consecutive Remaining Fours — she launched into an extended profession as knowledgeable, spending the primary 14 seasons of her 15-year Corridor of Fame profession with the Minnesota Lynx. And when the WNBA offseason rolled round, Augustus, like lots of her friends, would go play abroad in locations like Turkey and Russia.

Every year earlier than she would hop on a airplane out of Minneapolis to go play on international soil, she might at all times rely on getting a package deal from Starkey, the longtime LSU assistant who as soon as recruited the product of Baton Rouge’s Capitol Excessive College exhausting.

Contained in the field had been books. Particularly, books about basketball, management and training.

“You bought to seek out one thing to do abroad,” Starkey stated with a chuckle, reminiscing about these days whereas standing outdoors LSU’s locker room on the SEC Match at Bon Secours Wellness Enviornment in Greenville, South Carolina.

Starkey wasn’t simply offering his former participant with a option to move the time whereas she took lengthy airplane rides. He was trying to plant a seed, after which present it with all of the issues it wanted to develop.

“At all times thought she may very well be a coach as a result of she has an excellent thoughts for the sport. If you happen to watched her play, clearly she had an excellent skillset, however she had the flexibility to assume the sport,” Starkey instructed SB Nation. “So, I simply at all times thought that she could be across the sport in some kind of manner and I assumed teaching could be it.”

Quick ahead practically 20 years after her taking part in days at LSU ended and Augustus is again on the bench for the Tigers once more, this time alongside Starkey as an assistant coach beneath Kim Mulkey. Augustus joined the workers final offseason and, identical to she did when she was a participant, has already made a big effect on the Tigers.

Take it from Aneesah Morrow, an All-American this season who leads the nation in rebounding and is prone to be a first-round choose within the upcoming WNBA Draft.

“What I’ve discovered from coach is simply be your self. She teaches you to really feel, and that’s a very good factor,” Morrow instructed SB Nation. “With the 4 place, you’re distinctive. A whole lot of fours are very distinctive. You may play together with your again to the basket and also you’re principally a mismatch nightmare — that’s what she at all times enforces. She encourages me to take my pictures.”

Not like her boss, Mulkey, Augustus just isn’t a coach who will get overly animated on the sideline. She doesn’t do plenty of screaming and shouting. Typically, she sits with a clipboard in her lap and watches the sport unfold in entrance of her, quietly taking notes.

Then, when the second strikes throughout a break in play, she’ll pull a participant apart and ship messages that break by loud and clear. This appears to be a superpower of Augustus as a coach, the flexibility to get a message by to a participant in an intimate setting. She’s relatable to them, as a result of it wasn’t that way back that she was one in all them.

“Seimone is a quiet chief,” Mulkey stated not too long ago forward of LSU’s first-round NCAA Match sport. “I believe her strategy is, she’s going to do plenty of issues one-on-one with the gamers. She doesn’t challenge loud, however I can inform you she has been actually, actually loud in issues that she has stated to them, whether or not it’s in a timeout or whether or not it’s within the locker room or the movie room. I’ve watched her say issues, and I’m pondering — you wanted to. That’s good to see.”

Matt Pendleton-Imagn Pictures

Augustus by no means seeks to be the focal point or be the loudest voice. If a dozen individuals had been requested to explain her, greater than half of them would in all probability use the phrase “quiet,” as Mulkey did. They may additionally use the time period “basketball savant,” as a result of she very a lot is. Augustus doesn’t purpose to command rooms, despite the fact that her resume would permit her to take action if she wished.

Even after successful three Olympic gold medals and spending 15 seasons within the WNBA, the place she received 4 championships and would finally be named one of many league’s 20 best gamers of all time, Augustus continues to be a bit shy and humble. When a reporter approached her in LSU’s locker room after the Tigers’ SEC Match quarterfinal win over Florida, she stated with fun, “What do you wish to speak to me for?”

Augustus is a part of a rising pipeline of WNBA gamers to pursue teaching gigs in school. Kara Lawson is the top coach at Duke. Niele Ivey now leads Notre Dame. Daybreak Staley, after all, has guided South Carolina to 3 nationwide championships. Brooke Wyckoff is in cost at Florida State. Coquese Washington coaches at Rutgers.

There are a number of extra, unfold all through the ranks of the game.

“As we see nice coaches like Coach Mulkey and (Geno) Auriemma begin to transition out of basketball, what higher manner than to fill these areas with gamers which have been there, carried out that, seen issues, been all over the world, and may principally hold the sport going, and develop the sport as a lot as we are able to,” Augustus instructed SB Nation.

At some point within the not-too-far distant future, Starkey sees Augustus changing into a head coach too.

“one hundred pc. And a profitable one too,” Starkey says. “She’s very educated and he or she is aware of how one can join with children. And that’s a giant factor proper now and never as simple because it was. Due to her resume, individuals are likely to take heed to her greater than they could the outdated man right here.”

One one that did — and nonetheless does — take heed to that outdated man is Augustus. When she first obtained into the WNBA, being a coach after her taking part in days had been over wasn’t one thing that was on her radar.

After which the books from Starkey began exhibiting up in Minneapolis. She tried pleading with him that she didn’t want them, to which Starkey replied, “Simply in case.” She remembers studying ones about former LSU and Alabama soccer coach Nick Saban, and others about John Glenn — the previous U.S. Senator and astronaut who was the primary American to orbit the Earth.

Starkey wasn’t the one one who thought Augustus may very well be a coach. Throughout the finish of her run with the Lynx, she remembers Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve asking her, “Have you ever ever considered teaching?”

“I believe Bob at all times type of had that inkling that I used to be a participant that might probably coach someday. Once you’re taking part in, you’re not occupied with that. You’re simply attempting to complete your profession,” Augustus stated. “Then afterwards you’re like, ‘Let me strive it.’”

Augustus obtained her first crack at teaching within the WNBA, working for 2 seasons with the Los Angeles Sparks after which spent a while teaching in Athletes Limitless, the short-season U.S.-based ladies’s basketball league that performs within the winter.

Fairly shortly, Augustus obtained hooked on teaching. A Sparks follow in 2021 is the day that she refers to as “the day I fell in love with it.” The second got here when she pointed one thing out in regards to the protection to a participant, Nia Coffey, then instructed her how one can assault it. Augustus taught her how one can learn the protection after which when to make her reduce to her place. Coffey adopted Augustus’ directions completely and wound up huge open. The issue was, the best way Augustus tells it, she forgot to inform the purpose guard to search for Coffey.

“We didn’t get the bucket, however she was open,” Augustus says now with fun. “However it was that feeling, like, one thing simply clicked inside.”

Photograph by Kristen Younger/College Pictures by way of Getty Pictures

Mulkey, who spent most of her childhood in Louisiana like Augustus, took the reins at LSU in 2021 after spending 20 seasons at Baylor the place she received three nationwide championships. She aimed to steer the Tigers to at least one too and as she was assembling her preliminary workers, she referred to as Augustus, who was then about to start her first season on the bench with the Sparks.

However Augustus wasn’t able to return to Baton Rouge and didn’t really feel just like the timing was proper for her to return to school basketball. Put extra merely, Augustus knew Mulkey had lofty ambitions and wished to win massive straight away, and he or she wasn’t positive she was geared up to be a part of that.

“I used to be nonetheless attempting to determine if teaching was one thing that I wished to do. And I knew when she obtained to Baton Rouge, expectations had been excessive, so she wanted a workers that was going to be able to go,” Augustus says. “So, I respectfully declined.”

After a nine-season stint at Texas A&M and one 12 months at Auburn, Starkey returned to LSU and joined Mulkey’s workers in 2022. The subsequent spring, they had been celebrating after successful the nationwide championship in Dallas, Texas, as a squad powered by Angel Reese defeated Caitlin Clark’s Iowa in one of many sport’s most memorable matchups.

However nonetheless, Mulkey’s need to have Augustus on her workers by no means wavered. Final spring, she referred to as her once more. And this time, Augustus was in search of a job.

Mulkey merely requested her, “What are you in search of?” Augustus defined she simply wished expertise, the prospect to study methods and methods. Mulkey replied: “Nicely, one of the best expertise is to truly get in and do it. You’re going to be right here with Bob. You may study from him.”

And so, Augustus returned to Baton Rouge and was reunited with Starkey.

This season, she’s usually coached within the area the place a statue of her is stationed simply outdoors of it. Of the previous WNBA gamers breaking into teaching now, not many can say that.

“To be sincere, I wasn’t actually seeking to get into school (teaching). Issues simply labored out. Every thing simply fell into place that I might come house and be part of this program,” Augustus stated. “I see these younger girls and I see myself in them. All of them are aspiring to get to the following degree, and every single day they’re simply selecting my mind. I can see myself actually pouring into them.”

For LSU star guard Flau’Jae Johnson, having Augustus on the bench has been a luxurious. She usually asks her for recommendation about what life is like execs, the place Johnson hopes to be taking part in someday.

And he or she’d like Augustus to show her a few of her signature strikes too.

“She obtained one of many nastiest crossovers over ever, so I’ve been attempting to determine that out,” Johnson stated. “She’s nice. And he or she’s like actually constant as an individual.”

When Mulkey drilled down extra into what Augustus wished to get out of her time on her workers, Augustus was sincere and self-aware. She instructed Mulkey she wanted assist in discovering her voice as a coach.

“I don’t actually speak loud. I actually don’t speak a lot in any respect,” Augustus stated. “However she was like, ‘End up, be your self.’ She principally advanced into the model that she is with the garments and the demeanor and the character. So, she’s positively been serving to me in that division.”

Augustus added that, with regards to x’s and o’s, Starkey has been her mentor. All through the season, he’s seen progress from her in all areas, however notably find that voice and discovering a training type that works greatest for her.

“I’d hear her have one-on-one conversations with gamers and it’s simply incredible data she’s giving them,” Starkey says. “So, we’ve tried to encourage her in follow and in group conferences to step up and communicate her thoughts, as a result of we actually worth what she has to say. And we’ve seen that progress. She’s extra assured in expressing herself.”

All season lengthy, Augustus says she’s been wanting over Starkey’s shoulder throughout movie evaluate and game-planning. In basketball and in herself, she’s starting to see what he sees.

When requested if she thinks she’ll be a head coach someday, Augustus echoed Starkey’s confidence, merely saying: “Hell yeah. At some point.”