Women’s Basketball Hall of Famer DeLisha Milton-Jones, head women’s basketball coach at Old Dominion University, likes to focus on the task at hand. Last Saturday, that was winning the Sun Belt Conference opener. After the Monarchs’ win over South Alabama, Milton-Jones was met with a joyous celebration from her players for her 100th win as a head coach.
“It makes me know that I’ve been at this for a minute,” said Milton-Jones, who achieved the milestone in her sixth season as a head coach. “It feels like just yesterday when I got my first win against Nevada at Pepperdine; now here I am on number 100.”
Milton-Jones didn’t begin coaching until she concluded her WNBA career, which ran for 17 seasons and a then-record 499 games. Over these past seven years, she has seen not only the growth in her players on and off the court, but also her own growth.
“For as long as I played the game…I was an individual who prided myself on listening well, paying attention and not just understanding the game for me, but understanding the game from the aspect of four other individuals on the court that I had to work with,” Milton-Jones said. “I have to pay homage to my high school coach, my college coach and all my pro coaches, international coaches and Olympic coaches…Every coach [who] has impacted me, I pull from their wisdom and knowledge.”
During Milton-Jones’s early days with the Los Angeles Sparks, with which she won two WNBA titles (2001 and ’02), coach Michael Cooper spent one off-season working closely with her and Lisa Leslie to fine-tune their games. Cooper used his connections to get them opportunities, such as having his former Lakers teammate James Worthy work with them.
“What I went through then, I can see clearly why we put an emphasis on the details of our players’ individual games and skillset, how we enhance it, and how they get better faster,” said Milton-Jones.
With 100 in the books, Milton-Jones is ready for more. That means taking it game by game, day by day. Next up is a home game tonight against the Ragin Cajuns of Louisiana.
“We try to win every day in hopes of winning every game,” said Milton-Jones. “It’s going to be us putting our heads down and continuing to grind our way through this season game by game, taking each opponent as they come, in hopes of us being closer to being able to call ourselves champions.”