Marc Stein of ESPN reports:
After a groundbreaking season coaching NBA hopefuls, Nancy Lieberman is moving to the Texas Legends’ front office.
The women’s basketball pioneer told ESPNDallas.com that she will be switching to the personnel side of the D-League team’s operations starting next season, after taking the expansion Legends to the playoffs as the first female to coach a men’s team under the NBA’s umbrella.
Lieberman said Sunday night that she debated the switch for weeks after the Legends’ season ended in April, ultimately deciding that her long-held goal of “making it normal” for a woman to coach men at the game’s highest level would have to be temporarily placed on hold for family reasons.
“I have one son and he has one senior year,” Lieberman said, referring to son T.J. Cline, who plays basketball at Plano West. “It’s not to say I’ll never coach again, because T.J. goes to college in a year, but I felt like this was the right thing to do right now. I don’t want to have any regrets as a mom. I want him to look up and see me in the stands.”
Coaches in the D-League generally work on one-year contracts, but Lieberman, 52, had been promised the option when she took the job of choosing whether to stay on as Legends coach or move into management after the 2010-11 season.