Paving the Way

By Emma Smith

Former Washington and Lee University women’s basketball guard Erin Hughes doubts she’d be a coach, or that she would’ve realized it was even possible, if Christine Clancy hadn’t been her head coach.

“You cannot be what you cannot see,” said Hughes, who became an assistant coach for the W&L women’s team in fall 2021. “For me, seeing Clancy as a strong woman who loved her career as a basketball coach showed me that it is acceptable for women to work in athletics.”

It’s also true for Clancy, who was coached by a woman, Carol Simon, at Brandeis University. “When you see someone in that role that looks like you, you believe that you could do that, too,” Clancy said. “Just the, ‘if you see it, you can be it,’ kind of mindset is completely why I ended up in coaching. I think if I had a male coach, it wouldn’t have necessarily clicked that it was a real option for me.” fell in love with the school and the people and the place. So, I applied to be the head coach.”

In her first year as assistant coach, the team went 14-13. This year, the team had a record-breaking season with a 20-7 record, setting a program high for single-season win percentage. The team landed the No. 1 seed in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference tournament— and an at-large invitation to the NCAA Division III tournament.

Clancy became assistant coach of the W&L women’s basketball team in 2011 after coaching at Colby College and Smith College. She only expected to stay a few years, but she became the head coach in 2012. “I really just came here because there was an opening,” she said. “I

Clancy also earned the ODAC Coach of the Year award. When she became head coach, Clancy focused on improving the team’s standing in the ODAC and making it to the NCAA tournament. “I cared about our culture and our program and the students, but I was definitely much more focused on just the X’s and O’s of basketball,” she said.

The team lost in the ODAC semifinals to Shenandoah University. The players were disappointed, but junior guard Tahri Phillips said Clancy told the women that she didn’t believe it was their last game. She believed they had a chance at receiving a bid to the NCAA tournament—and they did. The team lost to New York University in the first round of the NCAA tournament on March 4.

“Just on paper, it’s hard to say that we had anything but a great season,” Clancy said. “But what I was really proud of was how the team approached it, just trying to learn from each day and get better.”

The head coach said she doesn’t believe that a team’s success is limited to what players do on the court. “It’s more important to me that we grow as a program, that we become more diverse and more inclusive, and that we do things beyond the basketball court,” she said.

Clancy credits former assistant coach Sarah Assante with pushing for a more inclusive team environment. The team took advantage of a limited schedule during the COVID-19 pandemic to focus on improving beyond the court.

“We had what I call an ‘illusion of inclusion’ going on where people thought that our culture was really good and inclusive and welcoming to everyone,” Clancy said. “But, we found out that wasn’t really true. We broke down that illusion and had real conversations about what was happening in our locker room.”

The team established three subcommittees: mental health and wellness; community engagement; and what they call “culture keepers.” Culture keepers are players who work to keep the team’s culture in check through discussions on race and sexuality.

The community engagement committee members work with groups across campus. They coordinated with the Student Association for Black Unity and the Queer Liberation Alliance to host games in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and W&L’s Pride week. “I just want our program to be at the forefront of diversity and inclusion on this campus,” Clancy said.

Clancy wants her players to participate in conversations about diversity and inclusion, and to serve as leaders in those discussions. “It’s really important that we value this moving forward and keep pushing the boundaries, not just to make our program better, but to make ourselves better,” she said.

Phillips, a junior guard, said Clancy focuses on the women as people, not just players. “In the past year and a half, she’s dedicated a lot more focus to our development outside of basketball,” Phillips said. “We’ve had a lot of conversations as a team about our team culture and what we do and who we are as a program, beyond what we do on the court.”

For Hughes, the player-turnedassistant coach, Clancy’s guidance made all the difference.

“Beyond seeing it was a possibility, Clancy has always been someone who encourages me to do whatever I am passionate about,” Hughes said. “And at the end of my senior year when I realized coaching is what I’m passionate about, and I couldn’t step away from basketball, Clancy did whatever she could to allow me to enter this profession, including taking a chance on me and offering me the job.”

The women on the team appreciate seeing females in coaching roles. “It’s been very cool to be around such strong and powerful women. It has inspired me and my other teammates to just do whatever you want because we have made our own space within us. Just being women,” senior guard Erin Addison said. “We can have very open conversations about whatever and how we receive criticism … And I just think it’s helped me become a better person seeing women in positions I might want to be in and knowing that there’s a way to get there.”

“Clancy very much tells you how it is,” Hughes said. “She isn’t trying to sell you an exaggerated version of the truth. She recruits the entire person and wants to make sure you are someone who can improve and challenge W&L and our program.”

The head coach said her players are her strongest selling point in recruiting.

“We’ve been really fortunate in not just having talented basketball players, but committed basketball players, and just really, really good people,” Clancy said. “The people is what draws more people in.”

Addison said players appreciate Clancy’s individualized approach to coaching. “Her relationship with each player is so different and dependent on what that individual needs,” Addison said. “That is a superpower as a coach.”

Players also value that Clancy keeps her cool on the court during a game. “She’s very driven and motivated, but she is always calm and evenkeeled, even [in] our most stressful games,” Phillips said.

Clancy said she wants her players to know they can do anything. “I want them to understand that their voice matters,” she said. “They’ve had the experience of leading, and they can do it really well, wherever they go and that they should aspire to be a leader in that situation.”

When she talks to recruits, Clancy is candid about W&L’s program.

Many high school kids grow up dreaming of playing football, lacrosse, wrestling, or track in college. Only a lucky few will play one of the sports, if they’re an exceptional athlete. Robert Hull was one of them. He competed in all four sports at Washington and Lee University in the mid-1990s.

With his 6-foot-3-inch and 220-pound frame, Hull was a highly touted defensive lineman after winning MVP at the East/West Virginia high school football game his senior year at Lexington High School in 1991. He drew attention from Power 5 schools, including top-tier Division I’s University of Virginia and Virginia Tech. He also got noticed by smaller schools such as the University of Richmond, Brown, and William and Mary. But Hull cared more about academics than anything else. A Lexington native, he never thought he would attend W&L, one of two universities located in his small hometown. He wanted to get out of