Duke men’s basketball GM Rachel Baker has ‘an impact on everything’ for the Blue Devils

When it comes to NCAA Division I men’s college basketball, Rachel Baker is a pioneer as both a woman and an African American woman who has already earned a beloved reputation as the big sister of Duke basketball.

Duke’s storied men’s basketball program hired Baker as its first general manager in June 2022, the early days of college basketball’s name, image and likeness (NIL) era. The daughter of college and pro basketball coach Rod Baker is also the first woman in college basketball to ever hold that position.

As explained by Duke, Baker uniquely specializes in helping players “enhance their personal and professional skill sets, capitalize on strategic partnerships, including NIL opportunities, and work to support players in navigating the opportunities and challenges that come with being a student-athlete at the highest level.”

She is believed to be the only woman in a general manager position in NCAA Division I men’s basketball.

Baker is in her fourth season with the Blue Devils (34-2), the No. 1 seed of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament’s East Region. Duke faces No. 5 seed St. John’s (30-6) today in the Sweet 16.

“Oh my gosh, my job is the best,” Baker, 35, told Andscape. “And I think I’ve had really, really, really, really hard days. The hardest days of my life have been in this job. But every single day you take a step back and I think about the little girl who is faking sick to go to practice with my dad, or hearing Bob Huggins curse somebody out when my dad worked for him at Cincinnati, to now, genuinely, I consider [Duke head coach] Jon Scheyer one of my best friends. He is my boss. There’s a lot of respect there, but sometimes he asks me questions and it’s like pinch me, like, ‘You want to know what I think about that?’ So, I try and it never gets old. It’s unbelievable.”

To say Baker was qualified for her job is an understatement. She brought a unique combination of lifetime basketball experience and financial expertise to Duke.

Baker grew up around basketball as her father, Rod, has been a head men’s basketball coach for UC Irvine, Tufts University, the Harlem Globetrotters and in the minor leagues with the Grand Rapids Hoops, Rochester RazorSharks and Delaware 87ers.

Prior to Duke, Baker worked for Pendulum Holdings, a strategic growth investment and advisory platform targeting brands owned by diverse entrepreneurs. She also spent eight years at Nike, where she led sports marketing initiatives with a focus on transforming the culture of basketball and the athlete development journey.

The former La Salle University lacrosse star also led grassroots partnerships and event strategy for Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League. Her time at Nike also included the management of strategic initiatives between the footwear giant and NBA All-Star Kevin Durant, one of Nike’s six signature athletes who fuel the brand’s 80% share of the performance basketball market, as well as WNBA and NBA athlete integration.

Baker has served as the NBA’s marketing and brand lead for a season-long task force that included the rebrand of the WNBA, and also played a role in the introduction of digital solutions to refresh the NBA All-Star Game and NBA draft combine.

Dallas Mavericks rookie forward Cooper Flagg, the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA draft, and Phoenix Suns rookie forward Khaman Maluach were grateful for having Baker by their side during their lone year at Duke in 2024-25. Baker also officiated the wedding of former Duke center Kyle Filipowski of the Utah Jazz and sat at NBA draft green room tables with Filipowski and Maluach.

“Her impact is incredible from a day-to-day perspective,” Flagg told Andscape. “Every day I was around her, she just brought her positive energy. She was caring, compassionate for everybody. She was a best friend, someone that was always there for us. She just has such an impact on everything. Whatever you need, you always can hear from Rachel. She’s always figuring stuff out, giving us opportunities, making stuff happen. Her impact is incredible. I really care about Rachel.”

Said Maluach to Andscape: “Rachel was helping since the day Duke recruited me and since the day I got on campus. She helped me navigate through everything, whether it’s the international stuff, whether it’s visa issues, whether it’s just life in college in general. She was there for me as a big sister the whole time. I felt like it was important for her to share that moment with me during the draft.

“To Duke basketball, she means a lot. Most guys like Cooper used to call her ‘a mother of the team,’ because she was always there for everybody. She always guided us through everything, and she’s really important to Duke basketball. She helped, whether it’s with the coaches or the players. She was always there — even when you call her in the middle of the night and you did something, Rachel always had your back. And to me, she’s family and she’s like a big sister to me.”

The following is a Q&A with Baker with Andscape in which she talks about Duke’s big matchup against St. John’s; her groundbreaking job; navigating college basketball and the NIL space; being a woman in a high-ranking capacity in college basketball; her attributes from her mother and father; growing up around basketball; her longtime love for Duke, and much more.

What are your thoughts on the Sweet 16 matchup with St. John’s?

We’re just really grateful. Winning this time of year is hard, and I just want it so badly for them. I want more days together. We’ve been through a lot, and this team and our coaches deserve four more games, and that’s what we’re working towards.

What is the best way to explain your job?

I exist to be a complement to Jon Scheyer. Before we came up with a title, he was looking at some of his blind spots and what he wanted to focus on less as a head coach. A big thing is relationships with families and players. That’s how I’ve kind of made my whole life in this industry is kind of providing a differentiated business relationship with athletes. And also, just the business side of this. So, we didn’t have a [NIL] collective. The biggest deal I saw in my first year was like $5,000.

But he had the vision to know it was going to continue to grow and, not that he didn’t want to think about it, but he would like someone else thinking about it all the time. And I think all these general manager jobs, more so than in the NBA, they should exist to be a complement to the head coach. So, if someone wants to think about recruiting or roster construction or negotiating or whatever it may be, that’s kind of how my job has worked out.

How did Scheyer connect with you for the position as Duke men’s basketball general manager?

He had to get my number to call and see if I was interested in the job. That’s how little we knew each other. When I worked at Nike, some of the athletes and families I worked with went to Duke. So, I spent some time around the program. And there was one or two times where because of my relationships with parents, he called my old number and was just like, “Give me some perspective on where they’re at.” And that’s how he is as a coach. Everywhere, but especially in college, parents have so much influence. So, knowing where their families were at can help you break through to a player in a lot of ways.

He got my number from a mutual friend in November of 2021. And he was like, “I don’t know what I want to call it, but I know I need someone like you on staff. …” But as I got to know him more, we talked about what his vision was for this. And I remember I texted him because we talked about a bunch of different titles. We were like, “I have a strategy.” And I remember texting him and saying, “This is very unlike me, but the title general manager carries a lot of weight and the idea of being first to do that as a Black woman, I have to advocate for the opportunity to do that.” He literally texted me back and he was like, “Done.” And that’s how the idea of the title came together, too.

What were you doing before coming to Duke?

I was working at a company called Pendulum, a growth equity firm focused on investments in consumer-based Black-owned businesses. And then also strategic consulting for athletes and entertainers helping them build businesses and make investments thinking 10 years down the road. The [co-]founder, Robbie Robinson, worked for a company that did basically succession planning for billionaire families. And he was like, “How can I take that thinking to a different constituency?” I learned so much from them on how athletes, our players, should be thinking about generational wealth and long-term planning and that sort of thing.

What is it like working with the Duke “Brotherhood” and how much does that make your job easier while adding pressure at the same time?

I will say it’s easy. The big thing in recruiting, which I guess I learned this at Nike when we were trying to get deals done with athletes, is differentiating yourself from the competition. And part of that, you can’t turn on a TV or watch an NBA game or walk into a front office of an NBA team without meeting someone that played at Duke. You can’t ask for a better selling point or pitch.

You listen to a broadcast and they’re talking about two guys playing together or their jersey swap postgame. It happens all the time, and athletes want to be a part of that. That’s twofold. I’m biased. Our player development is pretty good and has been. But it’s also identifying good people and giving them an experience where they want to keep coming back. One of the biggest things we’ve done is we do an NBA weekend towards the end of the summer, and 20-25 guys just want to come back. We [had] All-Star Weekend coming up [in February] and our guys are not going to Mexico, they’re going to Durham. …

You come back to Duke and you know someone there. The continuity of that is a testament to Coach K [former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski] and what he’s built. You’ve been able to feel like a family. “The Brotherhood,” I know what it sounds like, and like it’s just a marketing play. But it existed for a really long time, and then someone put a logo on it because it really is how these guys feel about each other.”

Why is this the best brand in college basketball?

The data says it. We have 6 million followers across channels, which is three times of any other high-major program and more than Alabama football. So, from there, from jump, we can talk about the brand impact in a world where NIL was created for commercial value and everyone’s worried about growing their brands. Then also I think all the best brands are authentic and mean something. And the idea that we recruit people and try to foster an environment where people really can get better, feel safe, which I think is above and beyond the biggest thing while they’re here. They can trust you. They know that you love and care about them and they really like being around each other. That takes work, too.

We do a bunch to try and bring different groups together. You also have to be really selective about who you’re willing to bring in and how you’re willing to bring them in when it comes to contracts and playing time and promises and whatever it may be. Scheyer has outlined a set of values that we kind of have to stick to in order to maintain that.

How have you evolved in the NIL landscape and is it still ever-changing?

It’s definitely ever-changing. The culture of college athletics is someone lays out a bunch of rules and everyone figures out a way around them. So, that’s been the most difficult thing and why it’s consistently ever-changing. From the outside perspectives, we’re really innovative. When it comes to NIL, we probably started one of the last collectives. The evolution has just been the money has grown so significantly. And it just changes certain things about the dynamics of our athletes and what they need and how you keep them safe and their families.

But then also we’re inching towards getting to a place where it’s more structured and consistent and the rules are interpreted. We’re not all the way there yet. But I would say, if you came to practice, it still feels like college basketball. They’re still kids. They still listen. From my perspective, it doesn’t feel much different. They just make a lot more money than I do now. It’s a little different.

How much pride do you have being a Black woman in this space?

It’s everything. During my first internship ever in sports, I wasn’t around a ton of Black people. But then I got to Nike and everyone I worked for was Black. And I worked with a group of Black men that ran that place and they were very professional and innovative and also related with the athletes really well. And they had a ton of power in a way that was life-changing for me. It’s not reflective of the rest of the world and I got that leg up.

But I remember when I first started at Nike, I felt like I would have been better at my job if I were a man and if I had played basketball because it’s just such a natural connection that I didn’t have. And it didn’t happen right away. But you look around, you go to any high school gym — I won’t say the most influence in every setting — but there’s a lot of Black women, a lot of Black moms that have all the influence in their [sons’] lives and their worlds.

Once I realized that it was a superpower, not something that would hold me back, it’s defined everything about who I am and how I work and what I feel like my purpose is in this industry. I take a ton of pride in that. It’s not always easy, either. Every new job I start, there is a learning curve with all of it. I’ve been lucky enough to grow up around — starting with my parents — strong people, Black men and women that have helped define where I see myself in this world and in this industry.

How many Black women do your job in college basketball that you know of?

On the men’s side, I don’t know of any. There are people that have called me about working other places and they’re like, “We want you to hang out with all the parents,” or “We think you’ll be really great with the guys and helping with our philanthropic people.” People like to put Black women in the box. I don’t even think Jon knew exactly what he was hiring when he did hire me. But he’s been so open to a different perspective on all levels of what our program runs. So, they don’t ask for my opinion on scouts or ball screen coverage. But there’s parts of motivating young men that he really values my perspective on. I think from that side of things, it’s a little bit of everything. A lot of recruiting; I work on the business side of what we do a lot. The players are the most important thing. So, having a relationship with them, having hard conversations, it’s all pretty important.

What are the hard conversations like?

The thing about NIL and getting this kind of money is you’re forced to grow up really fast. And I think the beauty of the position I’m in is it’s one of the last times where our interests are exactly aligned. What’s best for me is 100% what’s best for the athletes. I don’t have a team or an owner that I have to report back to or an agency or whatever it may be. And I think sometimes it’s about helping them navigate how their families change. At the end of the day, that’s where you clear your mind and play basketball in front of 10,000 people while balancing everything that comes with school. I give relationship advice more often than I really need to and family advice. It really is kind of whatever they need. …

Our guys are great about saving. And they don’t need anything. When it comes to living and food, we take care of everything. If you only play four years in college and don’t save a penny, you can’t live off of it the rest of your life. So, it’s not like an NBA contract. But everyone thinks they treat you like a pro and your families are all of a sudden asking you for [something], and then on top of that, make sure you’re in your 8 a.m. class on Monday. It’s a lot. It’s definitely a lot for them. I don’t baby them by any means, but you want to take some of the responsibility out of their hands where you can. Just being a basketball player at Duke would be really hard. And then you’re supposed to be the CEO of your own business and an influencer and a great boyfriend and an awesome son. Our guys averaged a 3.2 GPA last semester. It’s like insane. It’s a lot to ask one person to do.

Even to circle back to recruiting, one of the big things we lean on is the Duke network, the Duke degree, and trying to make those connections. The proximity has always been there, but a 17-year-old doesn’t necessarily know how to connect to the CEO at Apple [Tim Cook]. They both went to Duke. It”s probably the only thing they really have in common right now. So how are you facilitating some of those conversations so they can learn from these people that know way more than I do.

I do feel like it’s our responsibility if you make it to Duke — if you commit to us, you come to Duke — you should be set for life. You should have met someone or learned something or been in class with someone where if you never play basketball again, you should be set for life. And it’s my responsibility to try and make sure that’s the case.

How does being a woman, specifically a Black woman in men’s college basketball, benefit you in this position and brings comfort to not only the players but their families?

In this space, there is such an unconditional love — good game, bad game, whatever. It’s something that is consistent. It doesn’t mean I’m not hard on them. It doesn’t mean I don’t have real conversations with them. Good, bad games don’t change how I feel about them. And I think that a man can do that, too. But it’s a more natural disposition for a woman. And there’s an empathy that comes with that. Women’s egos are a little bit smaller and it helps balance a room.

And then there is the woman I grew up around. My mom has never taken no for an answer. She’s just like a figure-it-out kind of woman. It’s as little as like, “Mom, I saw these shoes. Where do you go find them?” And we’re driving around to every Target. … She’s always just been that way. I think showing up is how she shows her love. For me, that’s how I’ve tried to do it in this industry, and it doesn’t happen overnight. Some of these guys I really naturally connect with, and some of these guys we’re just kind of hitting our stride in Year 2. But I just try and show up differently for everyone and be a reflection of what they might need from a personality perspective.

I also try not to abuse that situation. Jon, I tell him all the things he needs to know. But there are situations where trust across the program is the most important thing and I take that very seriously, too.

What’s your mom’s story and her influence?

My mother is half-Lebanese, half-Portuguese, but she presents as a woman of color. With my dad traveling so much with his job, she was always home. And that made it harder on our relationship for sure, because she got to be the disciplinarian. But I have such appreciation for her now and just how she balanced it all. Working in basketball, you think so much of it would be my dad — I show up as my mom at work more times than not. She always used fashion as a form of self-expression, which I certainly try to think about and live every day. And then also she’s always serving others to a fault. She has such great empathy and such conviction. I learned it there. She’s the best.

Your father is a longtime basketball coach on the college and NBA level. What influence did he have, and what was it like being in the basketball world since childhood?

I remember always being in the gym. Both of my parents worked so hard in terms of hours. I never saw a 9-to-5 [job], so I don’t know what that means. … But Black assistants a lot of times were used to having these relationships with guys and having to go motivate them or have the conversation or whatever it may be. And [my father] just has such great relationships. I get my stubbornness from my dad, but also I remember, and that goes back to a fault when you think about it.

When we were in California at Irvine, the team was always at the house. And I remember he recruited a guy named Tchaka Shipp from Jersey out to UCI. And [my father] talks about in the recruiting process about how he promised his family that he’s got them, he’s always got them. And [Shipp] got in a car accident [in 1994]. He was in a coma out at UCI. My dad got a job offer to go back to be associate head coach at Seton Hall. He knew he was going to get fired [at UCI]; he was close. But he just felt like he couldn’t [leave]. And he stayed, and it probably changed his career.

It just goes back to even with all the success in the world, I’m still around so many people that are really not happy. They’re so successful and just not happy. First of all, if you don’t know who you are, but then you’re not consistent with who you want to be in this industry, you’ll totally lose yourself. And I think [my father] lived [with integrity] then, and he lives with that now. Being able to see that from him, hopefully, I live my life in this industry with integrity. That’s always how he’s done it, at his own personal sacrifice.”

What’s the best thing you learned from your time with Nike?

At Nike I learned two different things. [Former Nike basketball executives] Nico [Harrison] and Lynn [Merritt] always taught me they were going to fight like hell for their athletes. They knew they were rooted in what’s best for the athletes and making that happen. That is it with relationships. That’s the only thing, right? They have to know that consistently. Lynn always says, “You make deposits in relationships. In this world it’s important to try and have relationships that are not transactional.”

Then, [Director of Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball] Carlton DeBose, who I worked with, gave me all the opportunity in the world, and Nico was great with that too, just in terms of putting me in the room. They were just great about letting me be around it and learn from them. But Carlton, too, was so visionary. I remember he gave me a book called, “The Back of the Napkin.” And it’s just that if something pops in your head, write it down and flesh it out. And I don’t know, at Nike, nothing was too big. We have crazy ideas and we just did it. And as long as it was rooted in our vision of protecting and serving the athletes, everyone was game for it and they fought for it. The Nike experience was transformational.

What was the best thing you learned from your time with the NBA?

The NBA had a bunch of different jobs. That was where I learned so much about the other side of what it’s going to take from all of our guys. From one through 12, I think that they’re going to be NBA players. I learned so much about how that whole thing works, what the league prioritizes, what makes a good ambassador for the league, just the way [NBA commissioner] Adam’s [Silver] mind works and his vision for the future … and then how we can prepare our athletes to best fit into that I think was really valuable.

What is it like wearing the Duke gear and being a part of the basketball family?

Scheyer asked me, “Is there anything that you care about?” I was like, “You are not going to catch me in a polo or a quarter zip.” So, I have my own spin on the Duke gear. Duke was my dream school. When I first learned about lacrosse, Duke lacrosse was jumping. My dad, I think must have been through Coach K, got me connected with one of the coaches. And when the assistants handwrote me a letter my senior year in high school, I slept with it under my pillow every single day. I still have it somewhere. I just wanted to go to Duke so bad. I didn’t commit myself academically in high school and I wasn’t “Duke lacrosse” good, so it wasn’t an option for me.

So, the idea now, I guess I always knew I’d end up here somehow. But it means everything. I’m so proud of Jon and our athletes and being able to represent. I tell our guys this all the time — I think I told Cam Boozer this [in December] — I feel so lucky to just have a seat on [Scheyer’s staff]. Our guys are really unbelievable in how they balance all of these things and how much they care and how they approach this.

That’s what the Duke logo and all that means to me more than anything else. It’s the part of it that I’m around for. The wins are awesome. The wins are so good and I can’t imagine a year what it would be like if we didn’t have them. But our guys are really special and seeing them at this period in their lives, that’s still a little pure. I always tell them when they leave, “If I see you in seven years when you’re a [jerk], I’m going to be p-ssed,” because it’s a really fragile time in their lives and having a front seat to that is pretty special.

What would you tell a young girl like you who wants to be in the sports industry but might be a little worried about being accepted?

The places that won’t accept you are not the room you want to be in. I’ve been in plenty of those rooms where I felt really anxious about who I am or how I dress or what I’m saying. And that there’s a place for us. … A lot of times we’re strength in numbers, we’re best in numbers. That the future of all of this is not that there’s a couple more of me in Division I and that Duke has a couple more of me all at the same time. We’re going to get there. Just staying true to yourself, seeing it as a superpower and leaning into all the s‑‑‑ that people think holds us back is the best thing that we can do.

What is attending the NBA draft like for you? Duke has so much talent that often is one-and-done. So, you fall in love with these humans, these people, these players and then maybe in a year or two, you’re going and then you’ve got to start a new relationship with these new players.

So, I’ve been to three drafts since I started. The first year was Dereck Lively and Dariq Whitehead. And for Dereck’s mom, God rest her soul, she got in there and that was the most beautiful thing in the world. The next year I sat at Kyle Filipowski’s table and we heard 30 names called, and it was the first year of no second round. And we had to sneak out the back door and talk him and his family down. And he was like, “Should I go to be an accountant?” That was my second year.

My third year, I was at Khaman Maluach’s [draft] table this past year. Cooper went one [to Dallas]. Kon Knueppel went four [to Charlotte]. We were done by the 10th pick. So, when you think about it, it’s graduation and it’s a little bit of relief. I sat with Khaman. We went in the back, took some pictures. I went to bed because I took a 6 a.m. flight to L.A. and I spent the next day at a Homewood Suites with [former Duke guard] Tyrese Proctor’s family. I went to Lids to get makeshift hats after we found out he was going to the [Cleveland] Cavaliers, put some C’s on some hats so we could have our own little backyard in sweats celebration for him. So, they all feel as good because it’s them getting [drafted]. They’re just all different. Draft night is a relief. They like us, but the draft is really what they want. So, it’s really special.

Are you married or have kids?

No.

How do you navigate those dreams, if you have them, with the busy job that you have?

I want kids. I will have kids. I want a family. It’s hard. That part of it’s really hard. And everything in life I have sacrifices. I have prioritized work. There’s been some great relationships along the way. I’ll get to a point where I’ll start putting some of that stuff first. But it’s going to take a strong man to deal with some of the dynamics that we’re up against. How I care about my athletes is how I care about all people, and I think I have a lot of love to give a family one day, too.

The post Duke men’s basketball GM Rachel Baker has ‘an impact on everything’ for the Blue Devils appeared first on Andscape.