In the WNBA, being multifaceted is part of the game.
Whether it’s head coaches who also serve as general managers like James Wade, or players who are also building business empires like Candace Parker, the league is comprised of individuals who have perfected the ability to juggle.
There are many reasons for this, but the simplest explanation is the WNBA is a six-month season and the max base salary is $228,094. So, not only is there ample time to earn more money, but there’s also a need for it.
Seven of the Sky’s 11 players currently are playing overseas, with most of them having to report within a two-week period after the WNBA season concluded. As for Wade’s coaching staff, well, they’re no different.
Emre Vatansever, Tonya Edwards and Ann Wauters all replace their WNBA hats at the season’s end.
Here’s what the WNBA offseason looks like for the Sky’s assistant coaches:
Vatansever
Vatansever has been coaching since he was 17 and earned his first head-coaching role this year, leading Çukurova BK in Turkey. His roster includes five current WNBA players: Chelsea Gray, Briann January, Tiffany Hayes, DeWanna Bonner and Jonquel Jones.
Wade and Vatansever’s relationship goes back a number of years when the two were coaching on opposing sidelines in Europe. Wade’s first memory of Vatansever was his energy.
“The first thing I said to him after the game was ‘your energy seems infectious,’ ” Wade said.
Vatansever’s first coaching job in the WNBA was as a coaching intern on Jenny Boucek’s Seattle Storm staff. He spent three seasons there before joining Amber Stock’s staff with the Sky in 2017. When Wade became the Sky’s sixth coach and general manager, Vatansever remained. Over the last four seasons, Vatansever has developed into a top assistant coach in the league, and he led the Sky to back-to-back wins in June during Wade’s two-game absence because of COVID-19.
Vatansever has not interviewed for any of the three WNBA coaching vacancies (Indiana, Dallas and Los Angeles), which came as a surprise to himself and Wade.
“My time will come,” Vatansever said. “I trust my work. I always did. Opportunities always come, all I need to do is keep working hard.”
Edwards
The first person to ask Edwards about coaching was her college coach, Pat Summitt.
Nearing graduation, exhausted from a tournament run that ended with a heartbreaking 79-75 overtime loss to Virginia after having already won two national championships for Tennessee, Edwards told Summitt she had no interest. But less than a year later she was coaching her high school alma mater in Flint, Michigan. It was the opportunity to impact youth that drew in Edwards. Her career on the bench was paused when she returned to the court to play overseas in Turkey, Israel and Italy before four seasons in the WNBA and two in the American Basketball League between 1996 and 2002.
The 2022 season was Edwards’ second with the Sky and fifth as an assistant coach in the WNBA. She previously worked as an assistant coach with the Sparks from 2016-18. Prior to that, she was the head coach at Alcorn State from 2008-15.
“One of the things I’ve looked at over the years coaching at the highest level is sometimes you think you’ll have the biggest impact at the collegiate level,” Edwards said. “But at this level too you still can make that imprint on players’ lives.”
Edwards dabbles in real estate during the WNBA’s offseason, buying properties and flipping them. Right now she’s finishing a property in Detroit and working to sell another in Columbus, Ohio.
Edwards is never fully removed from the game though, even in the offseason. She adds NBA and collegiate practices to her schedule to continue learning, she said.
Wauters
When Wauters retired following the Tokyo Olympics, she expected to briefly step away from basketball. She had begun to think about a coaching career toward the end of her playing career but didn’t expect the transition to be immediate.
Following the 2022 season, Wauters returned to Belgium. Along with coaching, Wauters works as a keynote speaker, working with large companies and small groups to share messages about resilience and successful team-building.
Next week, Wauters’ first book, ‘‘The Game of Life,’’ will be published in Belgium. The book is written in Dutch, but Wauters said there is potential for it to be translated into other languages eventually. In the book, similar to her messages as a speaker, Wauters elaborates on how lessons she learned throughout her career can be interpreted across industries and applied for success.
After one season as an assistant with the Sky, Wauters has no intention of stepping away from her young coaching career in large part because of the balance the WNBA offers her and her family. Ambition is important to Wauters, so a future as a head coach in the WNBA is something she already is envisioning, but she knows it’s a process.
“I do hope one day I’ll also get an opportunity to be a head coach,” Wauters said. “It’s about the right timing and right place. For now, I’d like to continue my learning process and get better.”
NOTE: Unless one of his assistants is tapped for a head-coaching job, Wade expects his staff to remain the same in 2023.
