She's Notre Dame's new women's basketball coach, and she's the first black woman to lead any sport there. The one that people heard about involved her introduction as Notre Dame's women's basketball coach, replacing her … That came naturally for me. Although only being on the job for a short time, Ivey offered very strong thoughts on the situation and where we stand as a nation in a Twitter post Sunday morning: Ivey replaced the legendary Muffet McGraw, who won two national titles in her 33 years. But after coming back from a torn ACL that wiped out her first season on campus, Ivey was hardly less instrumental. You know, just having an 18-year-old Black son, I've always have had that fear of, you know, him coming home at night, him driving, having those hard, tough conversations about the ways to move in this society, knowing that he's viewed as a threat. Joe …

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She wanted to encourage the next generation of coaches and use her own bully pulpit to ensure that doors were open to them -- hopefully in any basketball setting but certainly within the women's game. “You are my why,” Ivey, 42, said to her son. "So it was a perfect fit for me to be around the game I love and mentor young women. "I'm a relationship person," Ivey told ESPN in 2018. But the timing of first Loyd and then Jackie Young leaving early for the WNBA draft, along with Ali Patberg and a handful of other promising players transferring, essentially left Notre Dame short a recruiting cycle. You know, the civil unrest that happened abruptly after the murder of George Floyd - I just felt like it was an opportunity to talk about race, to have those uncomfortable conversations.

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She did a great job of, I felt like, empowering myself as an assistant, also as a former player. “This is perfect timing for me to be able to step into this type of role.” It was McGraw, she said, who made her realize it was possible to raise a family while working the high-stress world of college coaching. She has been hosting team meetings on Zoom. You could have both. She follows football’s Tyrone Willngham (2002-04) and Alan Turner, who spent 2014-18 leading the cross country and track and field programs.Both Willingham and Turner were fired, but it’s hard to see Ivey experiencing anything but eventual success as she takes the keys of a traditional powerhouse in the women’s game.

Success finally caught up to Notre Dame this past season, which would have ended without a place in the NCAA tournament. "McGraw's style worked for her.

You could measure the passage of time in her life by watching her son, Jaden, shoot baskets after games at Purcell Pavilion, growing from a boy who heaved the ball at the rim into a recruit who will play at Purdue.Now it's her turn. Cunningham compiled a 167-115 record in nine seasons as VCU coach, including an NCAA tournament at-large bid -- no small feat for a mid-major. But it wasn't until the NBA's That is to say that Ivey is similar to her old boss only in the sense that neither feels the need to be like someone else. She learned the game from her older brothers, and was shooting from three-point range by the time she was in fourth grade.

Ivey grew up playing many sports, but especially basketball. Last season with the Grizzlies was “the perfect sabbatical,” Swarbrick said, as Ivey immersed herself in the NBA environment while tutoring the likes of rookie sensation Ja Morant. Niele Ivey made two trips of note to South Bend in recent weeks.

Jaden, a Purdue signee rated among the nation’s top 75 basketball recruits, reached over with his right hand and grabbed his mother’s left hand. "Ivey will also have a fresh canvas. Yet like some of her peers at the top of the sport, namely Tara VanDerveer and frequent nemesis Geno Auriemma, McGraw enjoyed remarkable continuity within her coaching staff in recent seasons.Carol Owens returned for her second stint on McGraw's staff in 2010. McGraw successfully navigated transition after transition, from teams led by Diggins to Jewell Loyd to Arike Ogunbowale.

“You believed in me.” And then she suddenly stopped speaking. Jaden transferred from nearby Marian High School to prestigious La Lumiere, a northern Indiana prep school with a nationally ranked boys’ basketball program. “She showed me what a career woman looks like,” Ivey said. "She will be a fantastic role model and a leader in the women's empowerment movement," McGraw said in a statement.A former player, a longtime and loyal assistant, not to mention a mom, Ivey is the person McGraw believes the women's game needs -- and for too long hasn't sufficiently encouraged.Notre Dame was just a couple of seasons removed from the Midwestern Collegiate Conference when Ivey arrived for the 1996-97 season. And I think I've been prepared for this moment for quite a while, credit to Muffet McGraw. Last year was hard on both of them as she made the challenging jump to the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies, the ninth woman to serve as a full-time assistant at the game’s highest level. "She could get through to Skylar in a way nobody else could," Tsipis said, citing the respect that came from playing the same position at the school and playing in the WNBA.

She attracted attention for her long-range shooting from high school coaches, including Gary Glasscock of Following the retirement of Notre Dame women's coach Notre Dame Fighting Irish women's basketball head coaches And hopefully, my role and my presence just inspires to everyone.