The coach of the top girls’ high school basketball team gets real about recruiting

For as long as Black athletes have been recruited to play college sports, they’ve had to consider more than simply finding the best athletic and academic fit. Athletes and their families also must take into account how many other Black students are on campus, whether a school or surrounding community has experienced racial violence, and whether college programs have Black coaches, faculty or staff the athletes can turn to if things start to go south.

These are all potential considerations for the roughly 44% of NCAA men’s basketball players who are Black. But for the 28% of Black women players, you can add a few more layers to decisions around recruitment.

Given that women must be 22 years old before they can turn professional — which is less often the endgame, anyway — young women often put a greater emphasis on team culture and interpersonal relationships when picking a college. Other considerations include concerns over distance — whether parents can just hop in the car to reach them — and pointed questions about the measures schools take to keep their female athletes mentally and physically safe.

There’s a question of whether coaches even recognize that if you’re leading a tour of your large, predominantly white, possibly Southern campus, and the first living quarters you show a family is a co-ed dorm on a co-ed floor, that young Black recruit and her parents might (historically) need to see other options.

Coach Ronald James witnessed that last example firsthand. James is the head coach of the Bishop McNamara High School girls’ basketball team just outside Washington, D.C. It is the No. 1-ranked team in the country.

For 13 years, he’s also been the head coach of the powerhouse Nike Elite Youth Basketball League’s “Team Takeover” for girls 17 and under. Over the course of his career, he’s coached more than 90 NCAA Division I women’s basketball players. Eleven of them were McDonald’s All-Americans, including Angel Reese, who in 2023 led LSU to the women’s national title and now plays for the WNBA’s Chicago Sky.

When James turns on a women’s college basketball game, one of his former players is usually on the screen. Sometimes, there’s a former player on each team. He also has two daughters who played Division I basketball, so he understands the nuances of recruitment.

When it comes to Black women basketball players, he recognizes how deeply social, political and institutional changes nationwide can shape recruitment decisions. Even when nobody wants to talk about any of that.

“Denial or just not knowing how to respond or address these issues” is not an excuse, James said. “But the worst thing coaches can do is make it seem as if none of this will affect the athlete, right? That’s the worst thing they can do.”

For the latest installment of our Recruiting While Black series, James talks about the high stakes and hidden complexities of recruiting young Black women to play college ball.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Let’s start with this: There’s a difference in male and female recruiting, right? Tell me what some of the differences are, if you would. 

I haven’t been heavily involved in male recruiting. I just hear things and I see a little bit of what some of them go through. There are a lot of commonalities. The boys seem to be a bit more patient in their process. I think they are able to be more patient than the girls. When the boys make decisions, especially the higher, so-called ranked or top players, they seem to have more time to figure out some things. They watch what moves are made by other players that might be like them, and what the schools are doing. And then there’s always that big aspiration on the men’s side — on the boys’ side — to become an NBA player and the monetary value that’s connected to that.

Whereas the young ladies, the women, have a different rule process. They have to be in school for a certain number of years, so they will often graduate, as well as there are age requirements before they can turn professional.

That’s right. There’s no one-and-done.

Correct. I think the main [difference] for girls recruiting is, for one, college [scholarship] offers regularly come a little bit earlier than it does for the boys. So that adds some pressure, I think, because as a young lady, you’re trying to figure out what’s the best fit for you between the basketball balance and the academic balance. And not that the boys don’t think that way, but there’s a little heavier emphasis for the girls, maybe because there’s not the high-end, million-dollar contracts that the NBA provides like there is on the men’s side. Again, there’s money to be made now, unlike in the past, but it’s still not to that particular level.

So as the young ladies are going through it, they are looking at the limitations that might be there as well — [like] the number of scholarships available on a roster. The transfer portal is impacting both men’s and women’s basketball. But you also see that on another level on the men’s side, and all of that just minimizes opportunities [for high school players].

Then you have the class action lawsuit against the NCAA and what these young athletes can receive monetarily with these NIL [name, image, and likeness] deals. There’s the revenue sharing and the pushing back on Title IX. So again, you are making choices. Are you going to schools that are heavily football? Or are they across-the-board and willing to give women’s basketball their fair share?

Then you have this other component, right, this political component that’s on top of all that as well. So this is getting extremely challenging in making the right choice that best fits your daughter, because that’s what we’re talking about here — female athletes, and I’m a father of three. I didn’t have to have those kind of considerations when my two oldest daughters went to college and played. But I looked at where they went, as far as the type of state, the area, and what it’s been known for historically. I looked at all of that kind of data at that time, but now there’s even more that you have to be concerned about, I think.

How can parents and players keep up with all of this? There’s revenue sharing, there’s the NCAA settlement that you’re talking about that ushered in all this NIL money. The transfer portal continues to impact high school recruiting and changes that whole game. And then, of course, the country has only gotten more polarized and the environment more divisive. What is your advice to parents when you sit down and start having these conversations?

Just to stay informed. I mean, there’s a lot of resources that are out there. I think we’re all kind of going through a learning process, because it’s forever evolving. So you’ve just got to stay in the know and stay connected to the people that know and get that consistent message. And those are the type of questions to ask these universities. They’re still figuring out some things as well.

I just keep going back to [continuing] to educate ourselves as coaches. Like me, for instance, I have the various resources from our Team Takeover program, and our connections, whether it be to lawyers, whether it be agents that are involved in the field, whether it be college coaches themselves, or just picking up the phone calling, asking, reading up on information, utilizing resources that the NCAA provides on their websites and the various entities that are out there. So it’s almost like just doing your research, quite honestly. That’s how I do it and kind of how I inform parents about information.

But I’m not the only one speaking to them directly about things. It’s more so, ‘Hey, here’s a friend of mine or a contact of mine who is well versed in this particular area. We’re just trying to do a better job as a program of finding those resources to bring in so the whole organization can get the message earlier — sooner versus later — so you’re not scrambling.

I know I’ve gotten some feedback from some of my parents about DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] and universities getting rid of those particular programs where it gave them a Hmmm moment. Like, “Wow, what’s the overall impact of that?”

What about reproductive rights? Are these issues being raised, and is this something you all are thinking about as coaches? If families are thinking about it, what have you heard?

It’s kind of hit and miss, right? [The issue] is not consistently in your face. My first immediate response is that these kinds of conversations are at the very beginning stages. But choice and reproductive rights and things like that really have to be at least brought up and discussed. 

You do have to sit down and you have to ask those questions of the coaches of the programs. How do they support their student-athletes? How do they support their Black student-athletes in a particular region? And you’ve got to be OK asking that question. And if someone is offended by that question, to me, that’s a red flag. I think coaches should be able to address that, and when they can, that tells me, personally, they truly care about their players beyond playing. And that’s when they can get the most out of them.

If I had to make an assumption, it’s almost that mindset of, well, this doesn’t happen for the collegiate athlete, or they don’t have these experiences, where we know, if you really dig deep and pull back the layers, it does happen at different places and with different things — whether it be reproductive concerns or even mental health. That is huge. A huge, silent concern, I would say. It only comes up when something bad happens, and it’s not coming up enough in a preventative way.

I think there are just some things that are not really talked about or brought up as a concern when we talk about recruiting at this point in time.

What would your advice be to programs that, on the one hand, roll out the red carpet for athletes they want, but are located in states that are increasingly seen as hostile to Black people’s well-being, whether they want to talk about that or not.

I think the advice to programs is to be very transparent and upfront and understanding that this is a possible concern. So how do you alleviate the concern? By talking about it. So if there are some things that have happened, I think you talk about, how did you resolve [them]? How did you handle it? How did you minimize the impact if there was one?

I’ll tell you one quick experience that I had: I was on campus with two high-profile athletes. They were top five in the country. They were visiting together, and they’re walking through the campus, and they’re visiting the dorms, and they’re not comfortable. I can tell they’re not comfortable. I hear ’em talking. So I walk up to the head coach, and I say, “Hey, look, Coach, is this the best you have to offer as far as living arrangements for girls?” I said, “You’re going to lose both of these recruits just because of the dorms that you’re choosing to showcase.” She stopped the tour, and she talked about the other options and the things that they do well above anyone else probably in the country. I’m like, “Why didn’t you start with that?” If these two kids are that important to you, start with that. I just felt like they were trying to treat them like all freshmen.

What was the concern with the dorms? Why was there this visceral negative reaction? What was wrong with them?

They looked like jail cells. The security measures didn’t seem very tight. They were co-ed and even on the same floor. And you’re talking about kids that have never had those kinds of experiences. 

So then these intangibles that you’ve talked about, they come into play, right? It’s like, I’m already in a Southern state and I already am not seeing people that look like me. And now I’m in a co-ed dorm on a co-ed floor, and there’s no security.

Yeah, especially for a first-timer being away from home. That’s huge!

I have no doubt, I’ll be giving you a call again if something bubbles up. That’s when you see athletes find their place, because that’s been the Black female athlete tradition, yes?

Correct. When there’s a movement, especially one that they feel impacts them directly, we jump in, we jump all in. And that’s not a bad thing. But again, how do you keep the movement alive until you get the response or the change that you’re seeking?

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