Father’s Day: WNBA Coaches Share Special Bond Working With Their Children

For Michael Cooper and his son, it all began back in the Showtime Lakers days.
Michael was notorious for watching game film during his playing career. He’d
scout Larry Bird’s tendencies down to their fundamental level – a head twitch
here, a jab-step there. Bird once said Cooper was the toughest defender he ever
played against.

What most people don’t know, however, is that while Michael scoured those films
for hours and hours, a little companion was by his side offering his earnest
assistance.

“When my son Miles was a little kid, four or five years old, he’d be watching
with me when I scouted,” the elder Cooper told WNBA.com. “Of all my three kids,
he was always the one sitting there watching with me.”

Now Miles is an assistant working on Michael’s coaching staff with the Atlanta
Dream. The father and son pairing is just one of several in the WNBA. Brian
Agler, head coach of the Los Angeles Sparks, is another coach who is working
with his son.

Coach Agler has been a longtime fixture on WNBA sidelines but it was only last
year that his son, Bryce, joined the Sparks as an assistant in player
development.

“My kids have grown up around the WNBA and so they’re real familiar with the
players, the coaches, the teams, and Bryce followed it before he started working
in it,” Agler told WNBA.com. “We’ve talked a lot of basketball and I’m really
impressed with his understanding of the game – how he understands the league,
understands the players.”

Both Miles and Bryce have strong basketball backgrounds having grown up around
the game and having pursued it during their college years. Miles assisted his
father as a student-manager for the USC basketball team, while Bryce played
college ball before working as an assistant to former WNBA player, Debbie Black,
for two seasons at Eastern Illinois.

Both coaches expressed the benefits of working with a family member, including
the absolute trust and loyalty that naturally sprouts from a father-child bond
as well as their familiarity of thinking .

“He knows how to read me and he knows what’s expected of him and he sometimes
does things before I even mention it,” Michael said about his son. “When I first
hired him here, I was going to sit down with him and explain to him the whole
scouting reports [system]. But when I called him to sit down to talk about the
reports, he had already filled one out exactly the way it was supposed to be
done.”

Coach Agler said his relationship with his son has grown during the past two
seasons.

“Bryce has lived with me for the past two years… and we’ve developed a stronger
bond living together,” Brian said. “There is a strong bond of trust and you know
that any communication [going out] to anyone from him is going to be [exactly]
how I would say or do the same thing.”

Both men have been looking forward to Father’s Day. The Dream don’t have a game
today so Michael said he is looking forward to enjoying the more traditional
aspects of the holiday:

“I lost my father a year and a half ago so now I won’t get that moment that I
can call him or share some moments with him this Father’s Day. I think I will
be… looking at myself to be a good father to my kids and hopefully… I get my
phone call that I used to give to my dad. I am [also] surrounded by a group of
young ladies that really appreciate and respect the things that I’ve given to
them and they’ll always come say, ‘Hey Coach, happy Father’s Day,’ and when it’s
coming from your son who’s a part of your staff, it means that much more.”

Meanwhile, the Sparks are taking on a surging Phoenix Mercury team and Coach
Agler’s all-hands-on-deck mentality leaves little time to think about the
pleasantries of the day:

“I tell our staff before the season that once we get in season you won’t even
know what day it is. You’ll know if you have a practice or a game. Other than
that, you won’t know the day of the week, or a holiday or anything else.”

At the end of the day, both coaches will most likely share a special moment with
their kids. But Michael is quick to remind everyone that just because a coach
works with his child, that doesn’t mean he or she will receive any special
treatment.

“I’ll tell you this, if Miles was not doing his job, I would fire him in a
minute,” Cooper said, laughing heartily.

“The thing about working with your kid though is you can fire them… but you
can’t get rid of them!”

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