Former Sacramento Monarch Kara Lawson Lands NBA Assistant Coaching Job
And we couldn’t be happier for her!
By kncitom on June 28, 2019
We are so happy for our friend Kara Lawson. Years ago, when she was a member of the Sacramento Monarchs WNBA team, we got to know Kara because she was a huge fan of country music–Kenny Chesney in particular. Longtime listeners will remember she was a regular on our show for a few years. We loved her because she’s smart, funny and candid: the first time we’d ever heard of Hot Pilates was when Kara called to tell us she’d just taken a class and had gotten in trouble because she laughed when the woman in front of her farted.
Other favorite Kara highlights:
-Telling us about the time when she played basketball with Kenny and Tim McGraw and “they were OK on a 9 foot rim”
-Pat having to fish her keys out of a porta-potty backstage at Country in the Park
-Playing pickup basketball with her and Kara ripping a guy for calling a foul on her: “That’s a baby call! That’s a baby call! You wanna play that way? OK, we’re gonna play that way!” She smoked every guy out there that day.
-How she told us her Olympic gold medal got her “free stuff”, like meals at Taco Bell.
-Kara calling us the morning after she and the Monarchs had won the WNBA championship and she hadn’t been to bed. Hearing the tired joy in her voice was everything.
Since retiring from the WNBA in 2015, Kara has carved out a career for herself as one of the best basketball analysts for ESPN and the Washington Wizards and now, this: on Thursday, the Boston Celtics named Kara as an assistant coach, making her only the 4th woman to ever coach in the NBA (the first was Becky Hammond, who was hired as an assistant by the San Antonio Spurs in 2014). The storied Celtics organization lauded Kara’s basketball bona-fides, which include that WNBA championship and Olympic gold medal in 2008. She’s also been coaching the USA 3 on 3 women’s team for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Congrats Kara!! And if you ever lose your keys down a Porta-Potty again, you know who to call
