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A man? A freaking man?! In a league built on the world-class talents of underpaid female athletes, it was understandable that there would be backlash to the Portland Fire hiring a man with virtually no experience in the women’s game as the franchise’s first head coach. And it could have been easily avoided. There are plenty of qualified women already working in the WNBA and beyond who could have credibly stepped into the role. But this wasn’t some flub. Hiring 30-year-old Cleveland Cavaliers’ assistant Alex Sarama, who was introduced Tuesday in a news conference at the Multnomah Athletic Club, wasn’t a failure to read the room by general manager Vanja Cernivec. Instead, it was a strategic decision made with full awareness that it could likely open the franchise to criticism. “You know this was coming,” Cernivec told me shortly after the news conference ended on Tuesday. She was familiar with the backlash received by the Dallas Wings after hiring career assistant Chris Koclanes last year (and replacing him with longtime college coach Jose Fernandez this week) and the Phoenix Mercury after plucking Nate Tibbetts from the NBA. Shouldn’t Portland have known better? After all, the ownership group behind the Fire, RAJ Sports, has self-branded Portland as the “global epicenter of women’s sports.” You can sympathize with those who felt that hiring a male head coach would be out of step with that ethos. “It’s the hardest thing as a woman,” Cernivec said. “You always want to empower women.” Portland’s WNBA franchise is a team with a female governor, Lisa Bhathal Merage, and a woman, former Nike executive Clare Hamill, as its president. Cernivec and Ashley Battle, a former WNBA player who previously worked for the Boston Celtics, are the team’s top two basketball executives. But the decision to hire Sarama as head coach raised eyebrows around basketball and led to backlash on social media. None of that was unexpected. “A lot of people in my circles have asked me, ‘Why are you risking this?’” Cernivic said. “And I just say, ‘Because I so passionately believe this is the right way to go.’ And there is no innovation without risk.” Cernivic said she believes in the hire with her “whole body.” And that level of conviction is what should inspire confidence in Cernivec as a decision-maker. She eschewed a safe decision in favor of one that has a chance to be transformative and game-changing. Isn’t that what every fan wants out of their team? A willingness to be aggressive and to take risks? To be innovative when it is attempting to shape its identity? Sarama is an outsider to the WNBA, which makes who he surrounds himself with all the more important. If he provides the high-level basketball philosophy, who will bring it down to earth for players? He will hopefully hire experienced WNBA assistants to give the system credibility and vouch for the philosophy that he and Cernivec share and develop the next wave of WNBA head coaches. I am sensitive to the fact that I am perhaps an imperfect messenger for this particular message. A man explaining why it’s good that another man — an underqualified man, even — was elevated to a leadership position in a women’s league. That is not what I am trying to do. I have no idea whether Sarama will succeed in Portland or if Cernivec will get to hire his replacement if he doesn’t. I simply admire that the GM has such a clear vision for how she wants to build the expansion franchise and is willing to stake her reputation on the evidence-based coaching model in which Sarama is an industry leader. Cernivec’s level of conviction bodes well for her future here and gives her tremendous credibility as a decision-maker. That she is willing to go out on a limb to hire the right person rather than stick to an expected archetype. Cernivec believes Sarama’s system will lead players to Portland. And that the Fire will develop assistant coaches who will take the model elsewhere and spread a system that will extend players’ careers. Her vision is much more complex than a single coaching hire. “It would be the easiest thing for me to sit up here and introduce not only a female coach, but also an experienced (head) coach,” Cernivec said. “It would just be, here we go, it’s safe. We win that day and you look good, you look smart. You look like you’ve attracted a big-time name in coaching.” But Cernivec was willing to sacrifice optics in favor of philosophy. Sarama is a pioneer in the constraints-led approach to training (CLA), which remains far from the mainstream. Nowhere has it been so totally integrated into a team’s operations as Cernivec envisions it being deployed in Portland. “I just couldn’t wait for the opportunity for someone to say, ‘Go all the way,’” Cernivec said. The Bhathals and RAJ Sports gave her that green light. Will it work? That’s the unknowable. But it’s the complete and total commitment to live or die by the belief that it will work that I find so encouraging for the Fire’s future.
