Vanessa Blair-Lewis, the head coach of women’s basketball at the Bethune-Cookman University, sits down with us in this episode of the 35,000 Feet podcast and gives us insight into her journey as a basketball coach. She shares how she’s created a winning culture at Bethune-Cookman, how she started coaching basketball, and something most people don’t know about her!

In this episode, we discuss:

• How this past season went for Bethune-Cookman University Women’s Basketball team (0:19)

• How Coach Blair got into coaching (2:23)

• Vanessa’s favorite travel experience (5:00)

• Vanessa’s advice to athletes wanting to play in college (10:08)

• One thing that no one knows about Vanessa (12:07)

• Vanessa’s next adventure (14:42)

2019-2020 Recap of Bethune-Cookman University Women’s Basketball Season

Shianne: I'm excited to kind of dive in and learn more about you. So you're wrapping up your 12th season. Can you kind of tell us how it's going in the highs and the lows?

Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis: Well, it's been going very well. We're in our conference tournament championship week. We actually play on Wednesday. We finished the season as the number one seed. We've won the regular season. So we were 15-1. We lost our first game and then we rattled off 15 straight wins. So it's been a really, really good season. We also were able to get in the mid major top 25 poll and stay there for three weeks where we're right now ranked 16th in the nation.

And so it's been a great ride.

Shianne: Yeah. Can you try to tell us more about how you've kind of created that winning culture in your team this year?

Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis: Well, the program has just been on a winning... we've just had winning ways and it took a while because when I took over the program 12 years ago, we were last of every statistical category, everything. And so we knew that it was going to take time to get us to where we want it to be. And so I would think after the first five years, you could start to see maybe a 500 season and then maybe middle of the pack in the conference. And then these last five years, we just really exploded because our wins and the culture of the team, we were able to recruit better athletes and better IQ players that helped us take the next step.

And then that next group would help us take the next step. And so now we are here at that next step, which we accomplished last year was our first time ever going to the NCAAs. And so now we turn that around and winning is contagious just as losing is. And so this group of girls were able to come back this year we lost to last year. So the majority of the team has been together, a nucleus. And so they just kind of know what the expectation is for the program.

Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis’s Start in Coaching

Shianne: That's awesome. How did you get into coaching? Like what was your journey to become a head coach?

Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis: Well, I never wanted to coach. I'll just start there. My dad was our high school coach. He coached all of my sisters. That wasn't his full-time job, but when I got to high school, there was a lady who was coaching because he wasn't in the school system and she stepped down. And so they named my dad an emergency coach because nobody wanted to coach us. We didn't have a coach. So he said, he'd step in, he'd come in after work and practice us and all that. And my dad had been coaching little league and all that for years.

And so I was like, "This can't be happening. Like dad, no, I do not want you to here in high school with me." And so he takes over the program and he stays for 20 years and he has only one losing season. He's been state champion. And so I grew up in a household where coaching was in my dad's blood and some of my uncles stepped in and coach some of the little league baseball. So it was in my blood and then I went to a college with a well-renowned coach and Bill Sheehan who has formally deceased, but he was an unbelievable coach.

He won a hundred straight games in high school before he ever lost one. So that's how he became my college coach. So just a lot of winning, a lot of IQ, a lot of being around great people that need to game. And so in my summers off, I would go back and coach my dad's high school summer league team for him because high school coaches couldn't coach their own teams in the summer. And it was just something for me to do, like to stay in shape, to work girls out. And then I went and played overseas for a couple of years. And then when I came back, I had hurt my knee and I was in that crux of, "What do I do now? I want to go to law school, but I still want to finish playing professionally for as long as I could."

And so my college coach said, "Hey, Vanessa, why don't you come back while you rehab and be my assistant coach?" And I was like, "Well, this sounds like a pretty good deal. I can use the facilities. I can work out. I can still be around the game. And then when I get ready, I'll just go back and play." And that part never happened. He stepped down in year two of me returning to my university in September, which the season had already begun and he made me his successor and I'm like, "I'm not sure I want to do this at 24 years old yet." And so my dad was like, "Yeah, you're going to do it." And so that's how I became a coach.

Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis’ Travel Experiences

Shianne: That's awesome. I love that you started off saying, "I don't even want to be a coach," and then life happened and your path is kind of just right there. That's awesome. Can you kind of talk to us about maybe some of your favorite travel experiences, whether as a player, as a coach because I know you travel a lot or even overseas you played? So what are some of your favorite memories?

Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis: One of my favorite memories is when I was able to play professionally in Sweden. 21 years old and getting the opportunity of a lifetime, where some of my other friends as soon they graduated were either going to grad school or right into work, I had an opportunity for my talent to take me across the world to a country, you can only dream of going to visit. And it was absolutely the best thing I had ever done. And now I look back on it I'm like, "Gosh, I was kind of crazy. I knew no one. I did not know the language. My coach didn't speak English. I had an interpreter there sometimes. It was freezing cold and I hate the cold weather." And I'm like, "What was I thinking?" But you know what they say, "Hey, you're kind of young and dumb and that was me."

And I enjoyed that entire experience. I've made so many good friends and a lot of them knew English as their second language. So I was able to get along and then I would learn a little bit here or there, but just being in Stockholm and go visit another city and try different foods. That was the best time. And I encourage my young players that when they finish, if they can take a gap year or if they can afford to do an internship or graduate work overseas to go. It just is an amazing experience. It erases so many prejudices that you have of other countries or other people, it broadens your horizons. And that's what it did for me.

Shianne: Yeah. I love that. I love how you said like that you even tell your girls to go and do that if they can because you know all the experiences and the life lessons and it kind of just makes you grow as a person. I love that.

Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis: Yeah, it definitely does.

Shianne: Have you been able to travel with your team anywhere?

Blair: Just for our games, up and down the East coast. We're from Florida. So it's always exciting to see some of the players on our team that are from the Florida area that have never seen snow and they're like, "Wow, what is this?" I'm like, "Get inside. We're not making angels today. We have a game tomorrow," but yeah. So we've just kind of flown in the United States. We haven't been able to go abroad or any of those things, but just the different cities we've gone to, Washington DC has been really special for our team. I'm from the Maryland area originally so when we go up to that area to play, that's home for me and since they have built the African American Museum, every time we go up there, I take my team to go to that museum and it is eyeopening.

It's breathtaking. You walk away almost feeling numb, but you also walk away with such a rich feeling of your culture, of who you are, of where you came from, of what your people have overcome. And I just think it gives our girls a bigger baseline of saying, "Hey, you know what? There's nothing I can't do. Look at all that has been done for me." And so Mary McLeod Bassoon was an unbelievable historic figure in our history, not just in African American history, but in history. And so when you go to that museum, a lot of the people who were synonymous with doing things historically for the African American culture on the walls or something like that, she has an entire room. So for our girls to walk into that room and literally take a step back in time because they have recordings of her speaking and hear her voice as it was then and her name is on their jersey.

It just kind of connects them to, "Wow, like this is who we play for. This is why this university was established at a time when segregation was very real. And this was the woman who decided to take a step of faith and say, hey, you know what? I'm going to build a college. And to this day, she's the only woman that has ever built a college." And think about it. Back in those times, I mean, you could be signing your own death certificate by doing this. And our girls are able to give such perspective on that travel, on that trip up to Washington, DC. I really love how they walk in and then when they walk out and we're able to talk about it and digest it and the tears that come from their face. They finally start to appreciate the heritage and the name on the front of the jersey.

Shianne: Wow. I love that. I love that you are able to take them and kind of show them like, "Hey, this is the sacrifices people made for who you're actually playing for." And that's a really cool story. I didn't know that. That's awesome.

Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis: If you ever get a chance to go to DC, I know they have a Holocaust museum and there's so many beautiful museums in DC, but that museum is just phenomenally built the way they built it. And just the people who gave to make that a reality, it's incredible. You walk over there and you just feel like, "Wow, I just digested a piece of history."

Shianne: Yeah. I'm definitely going to add that to my list when I go there. For sure.

Blair: You got to let me know how it was when you do.

Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis’ Advice to Future Athletes

Shianne: I will. I'll let you know. If you're an athlete wanting to play for a team or a university, what would your advice be to them?

Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis: To go somewhere where the coach is a part of your life, not just your practice day. When I recruit our players, I tell them I want to be in your life for the rest of your life, not for these next four years. And I think that makes a difference. It gives you perspective because if I'm just here for these four years, then it's almost like a trade. I trade this for you and you trade this back to me and it's a business and that's kind of how a lot of programs operate. Well, I don't want to trade. I want to be there when you give birth to your first child, I want to be there when you get married, I want to be there when you, unfortunately, may have to bury someone that's close to you. I want you to be there at my home when my husband and I celebrate milestones, like our child being born or Memorial Day cookout.

My team has always been my family. And I think if you can choose a university where the coach is like family, then you can feel trusted in an environment where you're going to learn and grow so much, you're going to fail, you're going to succeed tremendously, you're going to be awkward, you're going to be learning things about yourself that maybe you didn't know when you were under your parents' roof and what better person that wants to be there for you to help you navigate that terrain, that actually cares about every part of you not just, "Can you score a thousand points for this program?"

A Lesser-Known Fact About Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis

Shianne: Yeah, I think that's great advice because you're there for four years with your team and your coach and you do want them to become a part of your family. At a small junior college, I played volleyball and I look back at all my memories and my friendships and they're still some of my best friends. All the mentors in my life, I still talk to some of them. So I agree exactly with what you said. You want to become family. It's not just, like you said, you're trading it for four years and then you're going to be like, "Hey, see ya." You want to become the family with them. What is one thing no one knows about you that you can share with us?

Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis: Well, everyone knows I'm 6' 1". A lot of people don't know is that the thing I wish I could have been successful at was being a gymnast. I was a gymnast from the time I was probably four until I went into high school. Now, mind you, when I went into high school, I was 5' 9". So my gymnastics coach and all them were kind of looking at me like, "We can't even lift the bar any higher for you," but I love the sport so much like I was all legs and I was probably 35 pounds at 13 years old, like I was skinny and scrawny, but I love that sport so much.

And then I felt like I had to stop doing it because I just kind of outgrew everything that was probably normal for that sport. And so not a lot of people know that I did gymnastics at a serious... I was pretty serious with it. So I think this is a new thing for the young people, they like do cartwheels after they score a basket or they do cartwheels in practice. And so my girls like flip around the court before we start. And they're like, "Oh, coach. Do a cartwheel." I guess they didn't think I could. So I did the perfect cartwheel, legs were straight, toes were pointed. And they were like freaking out like, "Coach, you know how to do a cartwheel?" So right now they'll know that, yeah, their coach was a gymnast before she played basketball.

Shianne: That's funny. You're like, "I can do more than a cartwheel guys. I was a gymnast." That's awesome. Were you always a gymnast and playing basketball or how did that kind of-

Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis: Oh yeah. Well, I played volleyball. I played basketball. I played softball. I was a gymnast. I played soccer. We played every sport. Once I got to high school, I was just a three-sport athlete, volleyball, basketball, and softball. But up until that point, if you would've asked me like, "What am I going to be?" And I sort of said, "I want to be a gymnast." And I guess everyone around me probably laughed, they were like, "Girl, you are 5' 9". You're not going to be a gymnast," but you couldn't have told me any different until I was like, "Okay, probably I'd need to move on from this dream." But every time it's on TV, I'll be sitting with like my friends and they are like, Oh, flip to the basketball station. Let's flip to the NBA." My husband's an NBA referee. And sometimes there's gymnastics on. And I don't tell him that I'll be watching that instead of his game.

Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis’ Next Adventure

Shianne: That's awesome that you kind of knew you're like, "I'm probably too tall for this. I need to probably have done something else, but you still have that passion for it. I love it. Well, what's your next adventure coming up? I know you're in the middle of your tournament play and stuff, but what are you most excited about?

Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis: I came up from Norfolk where our tournament is. It's in Norfolk, Virginia. It's dope. And actually the tournament starts on Tuesday and goes through Saturday. So we have a coach's clinic, all the head coaches do a clinic for all the Norfolk kids. And it's really great just to give back so they can be around like all the different teams, not just the teams they see in the city. And we do like a camp clinic thing for like most of the day. And it's great. And so I bring my kids up with me, Tim's six and one just turned two. So the six year old is, "I can't wait to go to the clinic mom." He went last year. And so I'm up here like a day or two before the team comes, team comes tonight. And so these two days, like I just spend time with my kids because the season is so crazy.

I'm either coming in the house or we're about to leave. And I pop in and I see my oldest son play basketball every now and then, or I'll pop in and watch him play baseball. But it's hard to be present during the season or they're at my game and I'm yelling at us and then they're probably like, "That's my mom over there." Our moments or really our window is short. I come home at seven. They got to be in bed at nine. So it feels short. So when we were picking up people for the tournament, I bring them. I get them out of school. And so Saturday, they work a clinic and yesterday we took them and they went to the children's museum and it was just so much fun to just debrief, like just take away and live life through their eyes and spend time with them because they don't know mommy is trying to win another championship.

They understand this what my job is, but that's not who I want them to know me as. And so today we went to the aquarium in Virginia Beach and we were just looking at all kinds of sharks and eels and it was just so great to just be a part of them. So when you say, "What do I look forward to?" Outside of my girls who are my team, my business and they keep texting, "Coach, where are you? Can't wait to see you." They FaceTime me all the time like they're really my children. I'm like, "I'm bathing a baby right now. I have to call y'all back." But those are the moments that I look for the most when the season's over. It's just to be with my husband, to be with my kids, to watch them, for them to not have to see mommy always putting a bag together at the back door and leaving.

Shianne: Yeah. Well, and I love that you value the importance of having your family with you. I mean, you take them for that week of the tournament. You make sure you spend valuable time with that. I think that's really important. And I think that's really cool that you make that effort.

Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis: Yeah. You can get lost in this game if you don't have your priorities together. My dad, mom never got lost in what they had to do. My dad was coaching. We were a priority and I just think that the job we do as parents makes this world a better place because those kids grow up to be someone's adults and you hope that they're good people and you want them to give back to the community. And the only way they can know that is if you invest that time in them.

And so I inherit 17 to 21 year old at 17. And so whatever was done, was done and all I can do is massage or create new memories or be there for them. And sometimes you look at some of these kids and there are little holes in them and you're like, "Wow. I just want to make sure that my child is full so that they don't have to feel like there's something missing from somewhere else or get it from somewhere else." And so that's the biggest job that I have, not coaching basketball, to be the best mom I can to these young kids.

Shianne: I love that. Well, coach Blair Lewis, thank you so much for taking the time. I know you're super busy, especially with your week coming up, but it was great talking to you and kind of getting a glimpse more into your season and your journey. And I wish you the best of luck this week as you are playing your tournament games.

Follow Bethune-Cookman University Women’s Basketball

• Bethune-Cookman University Women’s Basketball Team Twitter

• Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis Twitter

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Theme Song - I’ll Just Be Me by Gravity Castle