Adia Barnes sets example for all women
Arizona coach Adia Barnes waves a net in celebration after her Wildcats beat Indiana in the Elite 8 of the NCAA Tournament. (Photo: Mike Christy, Arizona athletics)
LAS VEGAS —Sam Thomas distinctly remembers an important conversation with Arizona women's basketball coach Adia Barnes, while still being recruited out of Centennial High School.
Thomas wanted to know what Barnes could do for her off the court, the impact she would have on her life outside the sport of basketball.
"She wanted me to be a better person off the court than I am on the court," Thomas said Friday. "And she's been doing that my whole four years here."
It's what Barnes has been doing for many of the people she's come in contact with during an 11-year coaching career, as an assistant at Washington and the head coach at Arizona.
The 44-year-old who spent seven years playing in the WNBA has two children with her husband Salvo and said being a mother to seventh-month old Capri and five-year old Matteo has helped make her a better coach.
It's easy to see the nurturing and caregiving mentality she's brought to the sidelines has helped raise her program to a nationally competitive level, as she's emerged as one of the most respected coaches in the nation. And after last month's national championship game is now one of the most recognizable.
It was just before the second half when veteran reporter Holly Rowe told viewers that Barnes spent part of intermission speaking to her players, and part of it pumping breast milk for then six-month old Capri.
"I was kind of surviving at the tournament," Barnes said this past Thursday during a phone interview. "I knew that I was getting toward the time I had to breast feed, so I just said, 'Whoa I have to pump' because honestly at that time I didn't want to have (those) wet (spots) on my shirt - I was terrified. I don't want to have milk all over my shirt.
"It became viral because so many women, it resonated with them. It wasn't my intention; I was just trying to be okay."
For the most part, reactions were positive, and people were thankful a story like that helped normalize working mothers who have been doing the same thing for decades, providing for their babies. For those who may have been turned off by the detailed account Rowe provided during a game that was to decide the women's national champion, Barnes is unapologetic for being herself.
"I try to make the best decisions for myself, my team, my family to represent Arizona well," Barnes said. "As a mom you just kind of survive. You just get stuff done; you do what you gotta do."
POSITIVE ENERGY
(Photo: Mike Christy, Arizona athletics)
Barnes knows she's become a role model and has embraced the journey of being a full-time mom and basketball coach. But it's her fans, and colleagues, and players who inspire her, knowing she's become an inspiration to so many.
Las Vegas Aces star Kelsey Plum said she wasn't surprised to hear Rowe's post-halftime story, as the two have been close since Barnes recruited her to Washington, where the sharpshooter proceeded to become the all-time scoring leader in NCAA women's history.
"She's always been a multi-tasker, she's always gotten the most out of wherever she's gone and that just speaks to her, speaks to her character," Plum said during a recent Zoom session. "She's always just been able to get a lot of things done at the same time. (If) they say it's not possible with Adia - it's possible.
"She's just infectious, just the way she brings energy."
Lindy La Rocque just completed her first year as coach of the UNLV Lady Rebels, but also played and assisted at Stanford, and knows plenty about Barnes. La Rocque also remembers when Maryland coach Brenda Frese had twin boys during the 2007-08 season and said it's good to have inspiring stories with role models for not only women in sports, but young women everywhere with aspirations of embarking on a career and motherhood.
"I hope to do that one day too and be able to juggle and be able to be an excellent mother along with building and creating an excellent basketball program and experience for student-athletes," La Rocque said. "Obviously what Adia has done with the Arizona program since she's gotten the job, but then being a mother and having a child, as a young coach myself I want to have children, so seeing her do it gives me more confidence.
"Totally inspiring and really just excelling in so many areas. I think for young women and young women of color and mothers, she just represents so many different people. I think so many people can see her story and see themselves in it. I think it's been great for basketball, women's basketball. I think it's been great for female empowerment and all the different movements that are going on. You don't want to discredit all the mothers that have gone before and done it, too. It's exciting because we want to normalize that, but also give the respect where its due of two really, really tough jobs and managing both and really being great at both."
THE EXAMPLE
(Photo: Mike Christy, Arizona athletics)
Barnes echoed La Rocque's sentiments, saying she's certainly not a pioneer in motherhood. Social media and a nationally televised audience simply help shed light on something women having been doing for hundreds of years.
But now, she's using her platform to further educate and bring awareness to the needs of mothers, while also lifting up those secretaries, or executives, or professional athletes, or truck drivers, or chefs, or flower shop owners, or any and every other occupation women hold while raising their little ones - either on their own or with a partner.
"What I've gone through is just so taboo, and we're not supported," Barnes said. "For instance, there is no place for me to pump at an arena. Sometimes I'm in a room with my players, sometimes we don't have a room for coaches. Just as moms, a lot, we're an afterthought. We are all here because of a woman. When you have a baby you breastfeed, that's kind of what every woman's dream of doing is, but there's never a place.
"This is our reality and I think that we should celebrate women, we should support women having babies as role models."
Which is why she isn't ashamed to breastfeed with her baby in one arm, and dry erase marker in her other hand while drawing up X’s and O’s during a halftime speech. Barnes' players are able to watch her be a role model. She can be a coach; she can have a family - she doesn't have to choose one or the other. And if her players see her pumping milk or breastfeeding, if her cover blanket falls off - they've already seen it. And it's not an embarrassing moment for her, it's a teaching moment for the young women who look up to her. It's real life mixed into their basketball world.
"I'm vulnerable for them," Barnes said. "I think it makes them all better, it makes them understand. And I think they'll realize as moms themselves going through any kind of adversity - wow raising kids with a job."
Thomas said she's seen many college students with a mindset of graduating, working for about five years, getting married and having kids and settling down. But with Barnes as an example for her players, Thomas said she's seen firsthand there is no reason to set aside dreams and aspirations.
"When the NCAA allowed us to take a fifth year I knew I was gonna take it right away," Thomas said, "because why wouldn't I want to play for Adia, learn more from her? She gives me so much opportunity in life as a woman. It was a no-brainer to come back. Just to see her being able to be a mom and a coach - and she does both so well - it just inspires us all. We know we can do whatever we want, we don't have to stop being a mom. And if we ever need someone to offer advice to us, she's always gonna be there, she'll always help us. I'm sure she'll babysit our kids if she needs to.
"Just knowing that we have someone like her in our corner is amazing."
