Geno Auriemma and Dawn Staley are torchbearers of women’s basketball. But who’s next?
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Cronan, who oversaw women’s sports at Tennessee, hesitated. The Huskies were building and, in recent seasons, had gotten the better of the Lady Vols, prompting questions about whether the losses would tarnish their reputation or be detrimental to their recruiting. Cronan questioned why Summitt wanted to continue scheduling the contentious rivalry.
“Her answer to me was so consistent with her. ‘It’s good for the game, Joan. It’s good for the game,’” Cronan remembered. “On every step of her journey, she wanted to always do what was good for the game.”
Summitt’s commitment to growing the game is part of her legacy and has been crucial to how women’s basketball got to this point in 2026 — women’s college teams receiving financial units for NCAA Tournament performances, record-setting television deals and viewership numbers booming. Tennessee might not be the “Point A” for all of the growth in the game, but it’s a part of the foundation, no doubt.
When Summitt was fighting to get women’s basketball on TV, using the intense Tennessee-UConn rivalry to get eyes on the sport, she didn’t know that someday women’s college basketball players would become some of the most famous athletes in the country, that the WNBA would have millionaire players or that the sport would have an undeniable foothold in the American conscience.
Thanks in part because Summitt used her stature to advocate for the sport, that’s where we are. And because of it, she’s one of a small group of coaches who’ve become single monikered: Pat. Tara. Muffet. Geno. Dawn.
Those five coaches (Summitt, as well as Tara VanDerveer at Stanford, Muffet McGraw at Notre Dame, Geno Auriemma at UConn and Dawn Staley at South Carolina) have accounted for 19 of the last 25 national titles, but only two are still on the sideline.
Right now, it’s Staley and Auriemma who carry the torch. When the biggest changes happen in the sport, it’s these two whom fans, media and, frankly, other coaches wish to hear speak on the matter. Title IX, revenue share, pay, tournament models — Staley’s and Auriemma’s thoughts carry so much weight for women’s basketball. But Auriemma is 72, and Staley, 55, has increasingly become the target of NBA coaching speculation, and after interviewing with the New York Knicks in 2025, said she would’ve taken the job had it been offered to her.
If or whenever these changes come, the mantle of women’s basketball will be more vacant than the sport deserves during this time of women’s basketball explosion. As the women’s college basketball landscape evolves, it needs coaches to be more than just a part of the conversation. It needs coaches leading it and using their positions to push the game forward, similar to Summitt.
As much as Summitt and Auriemma sparred on the sideline (and in news conferences), Auriemma saw — and sees — his role in the sport similarly.
“The things that I’ve always advocated for were: How do we give everybody the same opportunity that I had in building a program from nothing, growing a program? How do we help young coaches?” Auriemma said.
To that end, Auriemma said he has always welcomed young coaches into his practices to see how UConn does what it does. Even during those fierce rivalry years, Auriemma obliged when two Tennessee graduate assistants asked to visit Storrs and watch a practice.
Former Stanford coach VanDerveer was a fierce Title IX advocate who fought to make sure women could be in leadership positions. As such, during her nearly 40-year tenure at Stanford, VanDerveer always had all-female coaching staffs. McGraw, at Notre Dame, eventually did the same in South Bend and was even more vocal about women in leadership roles.
Coach @MuffetMcGraw has always been about empowering women.
Today was no different.#GoIrishpic.twitter.com/yOiwwFBS65
— Notre Dame Women’s Basketball (@ndwbb) April 4, 2019
South Carolina coach Staley has used her basketball platform to advocate for several causes — equal pay and more representation for Black coaches.
Women’s basketball finally seems as though it has passed the point of needing to fight for its mere existence and is now focused on expanding its stake in the broader sports culture. But as that growth happens, the sport is more in need than ever of coaches who can help shape this next era to grow in the way it should.
“Integrity and authenticity — that’s what coaches have to have,” VanDerveer said of this moment. “It’s not selfish, it’s not self-serving. But what is going to help the game grow and be sustainable?”
The coaches who’ve had the loudest microphones over the last few decades have also been the ones who’ve won the most, to no surprise. Though there is a bevy of coaches in this Sweet 16 round who could someday join Staley and Auriemma on that platform as the pre-eminent voices in women’s college hoops, no one is currently on their level.
UCLA’s Cori Close, a former Women’s Basketball Coaches Association president, has been vocal on name, image and likeness matters and student-athlete welfare, but she hasn’t led the Bruins to a national title, and whether it’s right or wrong, winning big does seem to be a part of the platform building, at least in the past. Kara Lawson has led Duke to three consecutive Sweet 16 appearances and is the 2028 Olympic coach but said she isn’t looking to be “the voice of the sport.” Vanderbilt’s Shea Ralph, in her first Sweet 16 as a head coach, spent much of her career at UConn with Auriemma and seems primed to become an important voice.
“We wear a lot of hats as coaches, but I think we have to be part of the conversation because we’re the ones that are in the locker rooms. We’re the one recruiting these young women. We’re the ones that are navigating the landscape and also in charge of leading young women,” Ralph said. “I think it’s still our job as coaches to protect the college student-athlete mold and model.”
This isn’t an issue that solely affects women’s college basketball. In recent years, several college sports have seen an exodus of longtime, respected coaches. In the last few men’s college basketball seasons alone, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, North Carolina coach Roy Williams, Villanova coach Jay Wright, Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim and Virginia coach Tony Bennett stepped away from the sideline. Those five coaches combined for more than 4,000 wins and nine of the last 20 national titles and carried the men’s basketball’s mantle for many years.
For decades in college football, Alabama coach Nick Saban, who won seven national championships, was seen as the pre-eminent voice for the sport. Even after he retired in 2023, he has remained a prominent figure in the college football landscape, appearing on ESPN’s “College GameDay” weekly and recently being a part of the White House roundtable on college sports. Now, when the biggest changes affecting college football happen, fans are left wondering: What does Saban think?
In women’s college basketball, that role often falls to Auriemma and Staley. What does Geno think about this? What does Dawn think about that?
But to Summitt’s point — in always doing what’s good for the game — it’s imperative for women’s basketball to find voices among coaches who can continue to push the sport forward. That will be necessary not just for when Auriemma and Staley are out of the sport but also to find those coaches who can, like Auriemma and Staley did, take this current version of women’s basketball to a place not even they can imagine.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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