MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve is, by her admission, not warm and fuzzy.
She can be brash, demanding and prickly — her word. She snaps back at media when she disagrees with or dislikes the premise of a question, gets blunt in her postgame assessment of her team’s performance and does not mince words with players.
“I’m not just gonna, like, hug Cheryl,” said Lynx guard Kayla McBride, laughing. “I think that the way Cheryl coaches hasn’t gone out of style necessarily, but the way this league has shifted, the younger generation doesn’t really like being held accountable for a standard of excellence.”
But she’s a damn good coach, McBride says, even if some players can’t handle her tough exterior.
You know who else can’t handle it? Lots of people new to the WNBA this season, including fans and media who often still expect women in sports to fit into a nice, girly box. Reeve can come off as brash and rough around the edges, and she’s unapologetic for both those things, or for being authentic.
She’s more than proven her strategy works, and wins.
Reeve is trying to become the first WNBA coach in the league’s nearly three-decade history to win a fifth title, this time with a roster made up mostly of afterthoughts and overlooked players. The New York Liberty’s super team roster features two former No. 1 picks (Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu) and two players with MVP trophies (Stewart and Jonquel Jones). Minnesota’s best player was the No. 6 pick in the 2019 draft and Napheesa Collier is frequently left out of the conversation about the world’s best players.
Now the Lynx will have to do it with their backs against the wall, after blowing a 15-point lead on their floor and allowing New York to steal Game 3, 80-77. Game 4 is Friday night at the Target Center and many are predicting the Liberty will wrap up the championship. Reeve is usually at her best when she’s being doubted.
After all, no one thought Minnesota was capable of this type of run this year — no one except Reeve, who was bullish about her team deserving fanfare and attention early this season.
On May 3, the first day of the preseason, Reeve tweeted that “the W is more than one player” — a reference to the fact that the league was only promoting Caitlin Clark’s preseason game, and ignoring the Lynx’s game against the Chicago Sky (featuring another rookie, Angel Reese).
Social media went crazy, accusing Reeve, also the 2024 Olympic coach, of having a personal vendetta against Clark.
When Clark was left off the roster for Paris, many blamed Reeve, even though the team is put together by a USA Basketball selection committee that does not include the head coach.
Speaking of the Olympics, that’s something else Reeve did this summer, leading Team USA to an unprecedented eighth consecutive gold medal. That’s a thankless job that, no matter the gold, is going to result in the head coach getting grief because inevitably, some All-Stars are going to get benched. Reeve described the experience as “taking bullets” for USAB.
Again, blunt honesty — the type that’s often celebrated in male coaches like the NBA’s Gregg Popovich, who is so gruff his interactions with the media can make root canals seem pleasant.
But players say Reeve is much more than what anyone sees on the court, or reads on social media.
When the Lynx pursued McBride in free agency in 2021, Reeve got on the phone with McBride’s mom to assure her that Minnesota would take care of her daughter even though “I was 27, a grown woman!” McBride said. When Collier returned to the court just 74 days after giving birth to daughter Mila, Reeve told Collier that if she ever needed to stop or leave practice to nurse or pump, she could.
She’s fought for others, too. The WNBA is known now as a player activist league but for years the coaches led that charge, with Reeve at the forefront. It was Reeve who penned an open letter in a 2021 “Sports Illustrated” issue arguing for the inclusion of trans women in women’s sports. Her coaching “uniform” every home game consists of jeans, a blazer and a T-shirt with a political statement, often expressing support for the LGBTQ+ community, gun control or encouraging people to vote.
“When I became a head coach, it became easier for me to use my platform,” Reeve told USA TODAY Sports. “And I felt like things needed to be said, things needed to be out in the open and if I could be an example to our players and empower them with my leadership in difficult spaces, then it would … give them the confidence to know, ‘it’s not easy what she’s doing, wow she’s getting a lot of grief, a lot of criticism,’ whatever — but that’s what courage is. And if you believe in something and stand up for it, it’s the right thing to do, to be a voice for the voiceless.”
Reeve isn’t looking for anyone’s praise or validation. She gets all she needs from her players and the Lynx trophy case — which might have an addition soon.
