A Matter of When, Not If, Becky Hammon Becomes NBA's First Female Head Coach
*By Max Godnick*
The last person to break glass in the NBA was [Shaquille O'Neal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3MTNj7z5dQ), 25 years ago.
Becky Hammon, an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs, could be the next.
Hammon interviewed this week to be the head coach of the Milwaukee Buck. A six-time WNBA All-Star, Hammon was the first woman to be an NBA assistant coach and has served on Spurs' Coach Gregg Popovich's staff since 2014. If she were hired by the Bucks, she would be the first woman to coach a men's team in any of the country's four biggest sports leagues ー the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball, and NHL.
Popovich told [The New Yorker] (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/16/how-far-can-becky-hammon-go-in-the-nba) in April that he believes his assistant is "ready" to lead her own team.
Hammon is up against other, more-experienced candidates for the Bucks job, including the 2015 NBA coach of the year, Mike Budenholzer. Though most NBA pundits think her chances of being hired are slim, the fact that Hammon is being considered may represent progress for gender equality in professional sports, said James Yoder, the founder of Chat Sports.
"It would be a monumental move in sports history for her to get that job," said Yoder in an interview Thursday with Cheddar.
The Bucks will probably not hire Hammon, Yoder said, but it's a matter of when, not if a woman breaks the NBA's glass ceiling, and it's likely to be Hammon.
"I think before too long, maybe one or two seasons, she will end up landing an NBA coaching job," he said.
Yoder added: "Any woman who thought that she couldn't break into men's sports from a coaching perspective has got to be rooting for Becky Hammon."
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/the-nba-makes-herstory-with-first-female-head-coach-interview).
After two incredibly close games, the Super Bowl matchup is set. On February 13th, at the SoFi stadium in Inglewood, California, the Los Angeles Rams will face off in their home stadium against the Cincinnati Bengals. After 54 Super Bowls where a home team never hosted the game on its field, it will now happen for the second year in a row, after Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Bucs last year. Speaking of Brady, ESPN dropped a bombshell of a headline Saturday that Tom Brady was set to retire after 22 seasons and seven rings. To discuss all the latest NFL news, Anthony Tall, President of Miracle Sports Group, joins Cheddar News.
In January alone, the gaming sector has seen three major acquisitions. Yesterday, Sony added to the flurry of M&A activity in the gaming space, snatching up game developer 'Bungie' for $3.6 billion dollars. Renee Gittins, executive director at the International Gaming Developers Association, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
NFL legend Tom Brady says he is done playing football after 22 seasons. Cheddar News speaks with Trey Wingo, Chief NFL Analyst at Pro Football Network, about Brady announcing his retirement.
Greg Bishop, Senior Writer for Sports Illustrated, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he says Tom Brady's legacy is all about 'progress' and expects the future Hall of Famer to bolster his entrepreneurial ventures following his retirement.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of America has been a driving force for youth mentorship since 1904. The nonprofit organization is launching its annual Big Draft campaign this month in partnership with the NFL, and Artis Stevens, the first Black CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, joined Cheddar to discuss the push for adding more "Bigs" as mentors on his one-year anniversary leading the non-profit organization. "While the NFL is recruiting and drafting more players, they're also helping us to draft more mentors and, particularly, men all the way from across February to all the way to April of this year," Stevens explained.
On this episode of Cheddar Reveals, Jim Riordan, Director of the MBA Sport Management program at Florida Atlantic University, breaks down the successes, failures, and chaos of the first seven months of the Name, Image, Likeness policy in college athletics; Adi Kunalic, President of Opendorse, discusses the first-ever association-wide deal in college athletics between Opendorse and the NAIA, and how Opendorse is marketing and educating student-athletes to make the most of their NIL deal potential; Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Stream's 'Predicting a Pro'.
Jim Riordan, Director of the MBA Sport Management program at Florida Atlantic University, joins Cheddar Reveals to break down the successes, failures, and chaos of the first seven months of the Name, Image, Likeness policy in college athletics.
Adi Kunalic, President of Opendorse, joins Cheddar Reveals to discuss the first-ever association-wide deal in college athletics between Opendorse and the NAIA, and how Opendorse is marketing and educating student-athletes to make the most of their NIL deal potential.
With the Beijing Winter Olympics set to get underway on Friday, Dan Wolken, a national columnist for USA Today, joined Cheddar News to break down the big storylines as the pandemic and international conflicts threaten to cast a cloud over the event that is aspirationally seen as a beacon of international cooperation. Wolken noted specific issues over cybersecurity for visiting athletes and disputes over human rights leading to a diplomatic boycott have been making waves even before the opening ceremony. "So you've got sort of these barbs going back and forth already between the Americans and the Chinese, and things haven't even started yet," he said. "We don't even know what's going to happen once the games start and people actually start winning medals."
