How things have changed and are becoming more equitable in women’s basketball:
- UA coach Adia Barnes appeared on three Zoom conference media sessions last week, fielding dozens of questions from ESPN, CBS, the Associated Press, every conceivable Tucson sports media platform and even a 9-year-old young lady who aspires to be a journalist. Monday’s NCAA Tournament opener against Stony Brook will be televised on ESPN2.
One of Barnes’ comments hit the bullseye: “There are a lot of voices out there, and people care now. They didn’t care five years ago. They didn’t care in the ’90s. (But) they care now.”
Neg~77139; Star Sports — — Arizona’s Adia Barnes, left, drives past Western Kentucky’s Shea Lunsford during the second half of their game at Stegeman Coliseum in Athens, Ga in the NCAA tournament. Photo taken by Bruce McClelland. Neg.# 77139. Copyright 1996 The Arizona Daily Star Event:Game; Identity:Athlete; PLS:Basketball; Book:D; People: Adia Barnes UA women vs. Westerm Kentucky
Compare that to Barnes’ days as an All-Pac-10 forward at Arizona, when the UA’s second-round NCAA Tournament game against No. 2 seed Rutgers was televised only on Cablevision of the Raritan Valley in New Jersey. Compare that to Barnes’ first-ever NCAA Tournament game, 1997, against Western Kentucky, which wasn’t televised anywhere. Now the ESPN platform televises all 63 women’s NCAA Tournament games.
“I don’t want the message of the NCAA Tournament to be one of disparity,” Barnes said Friday. “We’re on the main channels. There is progress. (But) I hope for my daughter it’s going to be better.”
- Pac-12 women’s basketball referees are paid about $3,000 per game, on average. That’s the roughly same as Pac-12 men’s basketball officials. The most accomplished officials, men’s and women’s, like Tucson’s Chris Rastatter (men’s) and Bob Scofield (women’s), can earn more than $3,000 per game.
Some leagues still pay men’s officials a bit more than women, but it’s close. The Pac-12 restructured its pay for officials about 10 years ago. In Barnes’ days, Pac-10 referees were paid roughly $750 per game. Women’s officials of a generation ago were essentially a Triple-A level of basketball officiating. That is changing.
- Barnes last week agreed to a five-year contract extension through 2026. Her base salary will move from $404,000 to a much higher figure, perhaps close to $700,000, by 2026.
It simply puts her in the ballpark with Pac-12 contemporaries. Oregon’s Kelly Graves recently signed an extension through 2029 and will earn $1.3 million in the final year of his deal. Oregon State’s Scott Rueck, who was paid $385,000 as recently as 2017, is now signed through 2027 with a current compensation of $740,000.
ASU’s Charli Turner Thorne, probably the second most accomplished women’s basketball coach in Pac-12 history, last month signed an extension through 2024; she earned $544,000 this season.
Not all Pac-12 coaches are so well paid. Utah’s Lynne Roberts is at $295,000 and Colorado’s J.R. Payne at $300,000. But they haven’t commanded Top 25 programs.
- Arizona cared so little about its women’s basketball program in the pre-Barnes days that it kept renewing the contract of coach Niya Butts even though she had successive Pac-12 records of 4-14, 3-15, 3-15 and 1-17 from 2012-15.
Yet Butts was retained for an eighth season, 2015-2016, and paid $210,000, even though her career Pac-12 record would sink to 24-110.
That would never happen now. Last week, Washington fired fourth-year coach Jody Wynn even though it still owed her $950,000 through 2023. The Huskies had gone from the Final Four in 2015-16 — Barnes’ last season as a Washington assistant coach — to a combined 8-26 in conference games the last two seasons.
In five years, Barnes has turned Arizona into what her old Washington program used to be. The Huskies flipped and have become what Arizona used to be.
“I still have a Final Four ring from my Washington days,” Barnes said.
- In the spring of 2011, Sean Miller threatened to leave Arizona to become the head coach at Maryland. Part of the negotiations to keep Miller in Tucson included use of charter jets to all UA men’s road games.
Yet Arizona’s women’s basketball teams strictly flew in commercial airlines until Barnes and her team were given access to charter jets for a few trips in 2018-19 and 2019-20. Finally, this season, Arizona’s women’s basketball team flew in charter jets to all six road trips. The cost is significantly higher and was especially noted during the financial drain of the pandemic.
“For sure, it’s getting better,” said Barnes, who has frequently expressed thanks to UA athletic director Dave Heeke. “When I played, we had nothing like we have now. We had community showers. We’ve made a ton of progress.”
- Women’s coaches rarely get recycled. “Women in our profession don’t get second chances,” said Barnes.
Only two Pac-12 women’s basketball coaches of the last 30 years — June Daugherty, who coached at Washington and then WSU, and Chris Gobrecht, who coached at Washington and then USC — were given a second chance to coach in the league. (Mark Trakh is in his second stint as USC’s head coach).
That’s not true in men’s basketball.
For example, Oregon’s Ernie Kent, ASU’s Herb Sendek, Cal’s Ben Braun, OSU’s Ritchie McKay, Washington’s Bob Bender and Lorenzo Romar and WSU’s Paul Graham all were rehired as head coaches after being fired in the Pac-12 the last 25 years.
- One area that hasn’t shown much change is competition within the NCAA Tournament. When men’s 15th-seeded Oral Roberts stunned No. 2 Ohio State on Friday, it became the 27th time a 15th or 14th men’s seed has won a first-round game.
Incredibly, no women’s No. 15 or No.14 seed has ever won a first-round NCAA Tournament game. That’s a record of 0-104. That’s one of the slowest-to-change components of women’s basketball, one that Barnes isn’t in a hurry to see change.
The Wildcats open Monday against No. 14 seed Stony Brook.
