Trisha Stafford-Odom, the head coach of women’s basketball at North Carolina Central 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 her experiences playing professional basketball overseas, how she become a basketball coach, and some of her favorite travel memories!

In this episode, we discuss:

• How this past season went for North Carolina Central University Women’s Basketball team (0:21)

• How Coach Stafford-Odom got into coaching (2:10)

• Trisha’s experience as a professional athlete overseas (3:19)

• Trisha’s advice to athletes wanting to play in college (15:22)

• Trisha’s favorite travel experience (17:40)

• One thing that no one knows about Trisha (24:25)

• Trisha’s next adventure (25:38)

2019-2020 North Carolina Central University Women’s Basketball Season

Shianne: Can you kind of tell us about how your season's going? I know you're getting close to wrapping up regular season, but what were the highs and lows of it?

Coach Trisha: The season is going better than expected or anticipated by outsiders, but it's going about how we then predicted it to go amongst ourselves, which matter the most. We are currently in sixth place. I think we've secured a sixth spot in moving forward into the NIAC Tournament, but I think the anticipation was for us to be ninth or 10th or something like that. So we've exceeded expectations of the outsiders [inaudible 00:01:20] and we still have not fulfilled our goals, which still can happen, but we're excited about the direction we're going. We're recently on a four game winning streak, we just lost our last one as we head into the final game of the season against our rivals. So we're expecting good things.

One of the highlights of the season was actually beating our rival at their place, NC Central took down NCANT in a double overtime thriller. So I don't think that's ever happened historically here at NC Central. And we're making ways and making marks and setting precedent for the next teams to follow, because my sports information director has shared with us that a four game winning streak hasn't happened since 2010, and there are things we've accomplished this year as a team and as a staff that team haven't accomplished since North Carolina Central has been in division one basketball. So we have a lot to be excited about.

Shianne: Yeah, that's awesome. You kind of are already on the right path with that four game running streak, beating your rival in the double overtime thriller, that's awesome. That's a really good stepping stones to keep going in the right direction. How did you get into basketball?

How Coach Trisha Got into Basketball

Coach Trisha: I would have to say my big brother. I have one brother and he treated me like his little brother and we played all the sports. Every sport he wanted to play, he had his little sister tagging along and what he fell in love with in addition to track and football and baseball was his basketball. He was a shooter, so state records and everything, but two kids in the house, I mean, I had to play whatever he wanted to play, so he made me tough. He made me competitive. He taught me how to talk trash. He taught me how to take a whooping and give a whooping. So my brother Kevin is responsible for the love of the game that I have. And then I just started playing with his friends and his crowd of people. And it just seemed a little easier once I was able to compete against girls.

Shianne: That's awesome, I love that your big brother kind of just like, you're like his little brother, even though, that's awesome, I love that.

Coach Trisha: He dragged me along.

Shianne: That's awesome. And so you actually played in the WNBA and some European leagues, can you kind of tell us about that a little bit? I think that's so cool.

Coach Trisha: I did. And thank you, it's exciting to tell the story and then when I hear it now, I mean, I'm looking at it from a different perspective, sometimes you're in things and you take them for granted, and then when you see how much people appreciate it, you kind of step back and say, wow, I did that. So yeah, I was a professional athlete, basketball player for about 12 years. I graduated a long time ago from high school, from college in '92 and straight after '92, I went and played overseas. I think my first job was in Italy.

And I did between Italy, Israel, Spain, Brazil, Puerto Rico, and the WBA and the ABL, which is the American Basketball League in the States, I did about 12 years of professional ball. So to be able to be compensated for something that I would have done for free and that I love gave me a perspective on life. Like if you're going to do something, do it with all your heart and eventually you might be able to get paid to do it. So played with the Houston Comets. That was an exciting team back in the day. I think the first four years of the WNBA, they won the first championships four in a row. And I say that because I came year five, and though we competed, we didn't win the fifth year.

But I went from there to a team called the Miami Soul, plays in the same arena as the Miami Heat. That team ended up folding and the league still goes on and on. But prior to me even joining the WNBA, I was in a league called the American Basketball League. Professional league paid more money, bigger crowds, it play in the same season as normal professional basketball season. So whereas the WNBA plays in the summer months, the American Basketball League was taking place during the college season.

So I played for the Long Beach Stingrays after I was traded there. My first team in the ABL was called the San Jose Lasers. And we were in the Bay area. We were near Palo Alto Stanford. So I had some Stanford Cardinal teammates, which was my rival having come from UC Berkeley. But that league was exceptional, paid well, but at the time, I don't think financial aid could support for as long as...I think five to eight years, I can't remember exactly, but I had some great times and some lifelong fans and friends were established from the ABL.

Shianne: How cool? That's so awesome. I've never really got to talk to somebody that was a professional athlete like that, so it's so fun to hear how you got into that and your story. I love it.

Coach Trisha: Thank you.

Coach Trisha’s Transition from Playing to Coaching Basketball

Shianne: So how did you transition from playing to coaching?

Coach Trisha: As a player, peaking and about to finish my collegiate career, I would meet people, coaches, as a matter of fact, I can think back to being recruited. I think it was a man named Joe Champion. He was a head coach, long time legend at Auburn University. He's probably the first person that told me "You're going to be a coach." And I was still playing. I mean, at the time, I mean, coaches weren't even my favorite people. I'd had so many different experiences. Some I love and lifelong love for people and respect for coaches, but some difficult situations.

So I just never envisioned myself being a coach, but he saw something in me and said that's what I was going to be. My high school boys basketball coach, I went to Westchester high school in Los Angeles, California, Ed Essam, still coaching, still winning championships. He told me I was going to be a coach. He would coach the boys at Westchester, so he would help the girls program and he saw it in me as well. So he offered me the opportunity to coach. I think I was playing professionally, but somehow it ended up my first coaching job was back at my alma mater, Playa Del Rey, California, Westchester High School Comets. I coached there for three years as the head coach, we had a lot of success.

And from that I would train players in the summer at the time like Diana Taurasi, a lot of the players that are my age or a little younger would come back and play at Westchester High School. I'd opened it up, like the boys should I say, we'd have pickup games and come back, there was never really a place or a league for the girls to come back and play. So I'd opened my gym up at Westchester. We'd have two courts running and the original pickup spot. From that, I had UCLA players that would come because at that time, well even now, there are limited times when division one coaches can have their hands and work out with their players.

So Kathy Olivier was a head coach at UCLA. She knew me, she recruited me as a matter of fact, she also said I was going to be a coach. Well, she entrusted her players in my gym at that time. Her players being in LA right down the street from Westchester, she'd make sure they got their pickup games in, come in and be competitive and stay in shape and work on their chemistry. From that, her players would come back. I think it was like a Noel Quinn, it was like a Lisa Willis, it was a Nicky Blue, superstars of UCLA would go back and share the fondness they had of me, Coach Trish.

So Kathy Olivia knowing me said, hey, when she had a spot open, when it ever came open, she'd definitely consider me. That happened. UCLA was my first collegiate coaching experience. And as everyone will tell you, I say I was blessed because most people don't start at that tip top right there. So it was a great thing. So I credit Kathy Olivier who's now the head coach at UNLM, he alma mater I believe, and so I thank her for plugging me in and putting me on that level, never to look back.

Shianne: Yeah, and then how did you get into NC?

Coach Trisha: From UCLA I actually got an interview with the head coach after Kathy Olivier left. I was still an assistant, and I was interviewed to be the head coach at UCLA for the Brewers, which would have been outstanding, but did not get that opportunity. I was off a year, got a couple of opportunities or looks to be an assistant elsewhere, Oregon state, I think Rutgers, but I took a year off to be mommy and to just be a family person.

Shianne: Yeah.

Coach Trisha: And then matter of fact, I think it was Joe Champion again called me out of the blue and says, "Do you want to coach at Duke?" And California kid, forgive me, but I was like, where is that? What state is it in again? No clue. Absolutely no clue where it was. And I said sure. Let's think about that, what's going on, where's Duke? Coach Joanne P. McCallie, she's still the head coach at Duke right now. Flew me out there after having a conversation, a phone interview, she liked me. I knew one of the assistant coaches now who's now also a head coach. Samantha Williams. That worked out, ended up being an assistant there, over recruiting, recruited a number one recruiting class, recruiting another number one recruiting class.

From there a cardinal sin that I now know being in North Carolina, you never go from Duke to Carolina or Carolina to Duke, but the opportunity to work for a hall of fame coach and Sylvia Hatchell came up. She recruited me from Duke. I went from Duke to Carolina. So four years coaching division one basketball on the ACC, eight miles down the road as an assistant ended up helping to get a number one recruiting class at University of North Carolina, chapel Hill as well. So I've been here for four years.

Go back, if you want to know the story, the timeline, I go back to California as a head coach for Concordia university in Irvine in AIA, go there. And year two, I was there three years, year two, I get coach of the year, we win the championship. I think I got considered a number one recruiting class. And after three years there took another year off trying to see the next move. And now people that knew me, specifically my athletic director, Dr. [inaudible 00:00:12:31], she knew of me. I wasn't a stranger back in the Durham area. I had come here, done a great job, done work and had a good reputation for my relationship with kids and everything.

So, hey, now opportunity to head coach back in the middle of two schools. Then I chose Chapel Hill in Durham, right here in Durham. So it's not new for me. And thank you that the administration here is central trusted in me to come here and do something special at North Carolina Central.

Shianne: How cool, what an awesome path and it seems like everybody knew before you even knew that you were going to be a coach.

Coach Trisha: Yeah, they said something like that. And I knew that I wanted to stay involved in the game, obviously at that age of 18, 19, I never knew really how, but I'm glad I did it. The opportunity to give back, to impact lives. And I'm trying to tell you, man, the biggest reward is not just the wins, of course those are exciting, that's what we're going for, but when a kid that I recruited but didn't even get to come to my school or their parent calls me because they trust me and they know my value system and they ask me for advice or they just check in with me.

Or through social media, a kid that I coached a while ago and I gave her good advice that wasn't necessarily something she wanted to hear but they found out later it was all truthful. I mean, those are the rewards. Or now they're able to tell their friends and sisters that yes, she recruited me. You should go there, she's cool people, she's changing things. And I mean, those things are more than exciting.

Shianne: Yeah. It seems like you're an awesome mentor, because I feel like when I look back at my coaches I had, my favorite ones were the ones who were not just coaches, but also mentors and I could lean on them for advice. And that sounds just like how you are.

Coach Trisha: Absolutely. I mean, and the thing is, I'm this person no matter where I am or what I'm doing. It's so funny to be in the recruiting world, the basketball world. You recruit in, and I remember as a player, I'm in there playing a game but in the stands you see hundreds of coaches and you're always trying to look on their shirt to see where's that logo from, where are they from, what school is that, what school is that?

Well, I can always say to people, I'm Trish, regardless of shirt I have on whether it's Concordia, whether it's Duke, Carolina, UCLA, or now North Carolina Central, I'm the same person. So I never changed with the shirts that I changed. I'm who I am. I tell parents all the time, man, I'm a mother to your kid. I mean, now I am actually a mother of two children, my two sons that I love to death.

So I'm going to treat them, as long as you trust me, I'm going to treat them as if they're my kids, which means it's not always happy times, mom's get on their butts, and then I'm going to praise them. They're going to know at the end of the day I love them and it's all about what is best for them at the time that I can help them accomplish. So again, those are the rewards. I love the fact that people label me mentor, but I'm not seeking the title, I'm just being me. And at the end of the day, people appreciate me for that. And I'm grateful.

Coach Trisha’s Advice to Prospective College Athletes 

Shianne: Yeah, that's an awesome outlook. I feel like this goes into my next question, if you're wanting to plan in a university, what would your advice be to them?

Coach Trisha: You have to work hard. When I say work hard, I don't mean sometimes, I mean all the time. It has to become a habit. I had a quote today in my practice and it said, now I'm going to mess it up, but it said, people do not decide their future, they decide their habits and their habits decide their future. So habits of training and working hard, that becomes who you are and it puts you in better opportunities most of the time. But when I say working hard, on your actual skills, what is it that you do well, what can you do better? And you're competing with yourself all the time, but with your weaknesses, what are your weaknesses and how can you improve them? But it's more habits, man. The habitual runner becomes faster and anything with repetition makes you better, the shooting and all that stuff.

But then it's the balance of being able to function in an athletic world and an academic world, because it's not just one sided, you're not just athletes, you have to do both. My mom used to say to me all the time, you can't have one without the other. And those were the stamps in my house. I mean, I was a 3.6 student and so it was something that I didn't take for granted. I mean, in order to play, I have to get great grades and do well academically. Socially, you have to stay focused. As you get older, there's so many options and opportunities for kids to party and be distracted or just not value work ethic, but you have to balance the two. And when you're able to do that, I mean, it puts you in position to be able to function in a real life, in a real world, with a real job. And after the ball goes down.

Shianne: Yeah, I totally agree. And I love what you said about the habits kind of decide your future and who you are, because that's kind of becomes what's ingrained in you and even when you're done with basketball, that's how you're going to be.

Coach Trisha: Mm-hmm (affirmative), that's right.

Coach Trisha’s Favorite Travel Experiences

Shianne: Right, yeah.right. I'd love to turn more to some of your favorite travel experiences, whether it was as player, as a coach or both, what were some of your favorite travel memories you have?

Coach Trisha: Well, going overseas.

Shianne: Yeah?

Coach Trisha:I say they're my favorite because the result and the opportunity to fill up my passport while I was filling up my little bank account playing basketball is amazing. I mean, they would always be long flights, especially coming from California, coming from the West coast, long flights, lonely flights, because I would always cry. Not when I was leaving, but I'd always cry, it ends with a cry because you got to leave your family going over there for a while.

Shianne: Right.

Coach Trisha: But the experience that I was getting at such a young age, early twenties, young twenties, to travel the world, to see different waters abroad. I mean, believe it or not, I tell people Israel was one of my favorite places to play. The beaches were beautiful, they spoke English, a lot of Americans there and it was never what we would see on the news. The portrayal of the news wasn't that bad and in reality. We'll see flight and then travel in my own life, I think I've become a bonafide cruiser outside of sports, I mean my family and my husband and extended family members, we like to cruise. So those experiences of being on a ship and just being a fat girl and being able to eat at any hours all the time.

Shianne: Food, yeah, food whenever you want it.

Coach Trisha: Yeah, but like I said, back to the basketball and professional experiences, traveling overseas was always great. To put on a uniform and be unified playing for USA basketball as well, I got the opportunity to do that. That's something I'll pride forever just representing our country and playing, I played in the world games and things like that. Being able to get a medal and being honored as an American was always lovely. And the world games and USA sports were always in different places and every opportunity I had to be a part of that, I mean, I jumped on it.

Shianne: How cool. And what about your team? Do you guys travel anywhere in the country? Where do you go or out of the country? Have you been able to go?

Coach Trisha: Oh we do.

Shianne: Okay, cool.

Coach Trisha: Yeah, the Mideastern Athletic Conference, the MEAC conference, it's pretty much grouped in there's Florida, there's DC area, that's Chapel, I mean, not Chapel Hill. There's North Carolina, South Carolina. So our travel there's a little different, I mean we fly some places but we get chartered buses, we're chartered to different spots and we travel usually not with the men, they're coming on their own charter business and we're coming as well, but we travel and we play double headers in our conference.

But being NCAA division one university, every four years we're able to do a European tour and with thanks going to my sport administrator, Mr. Derrick McGee, who getting the ball rolling as well as my athletic director, my team for this summer is scheduled to go to our European tour in Paris. So like a six or seven day tour, we'll play a few games and the young ladies will get that experience in college to go overseas. We'll get some educational opportunities in there and hit some spots that you only really see in the magazines.

Shianne: How fun.

Coach Trisha: Oh, it's super fun. And we've got a lot of donors that are going to help contribute and even participate and travel with us. A lot of interest as things sparked. And like I said, I mean, when you're an athlete and a collegiate athlete, you get taken care of in special ways, the expectations to me are much greater and higher. So you have some standards to meet. You live in a glass bowl, which means you're swimming around and everybody sees you, everything you do. You're not the normal kids, expectations change for you. But at the same time, you get opportunities that a lot of students, simply students, don't get, a lot of people don't ever get.

So it's a fortunate world. You get per diem, you get money to go once again to do something, you get an education, you get your degree paid for to do something that you love. I mean, it's a win, win situation. And in addition to the fact that, you would know this, sports teach you discipline, I mean, sports teach you how to deal with loss and failure and teamwork and all those things that Fortune 500 companies are dying to hire athletes. So it just develops so much more to your character. To me, when you've had to fight through fights of, I don't feel like doing this, but yeah, you have to, or the suffering of a loss or an injury. And there's so many things that being an athlete and being on a team teaches you that you can apply to the real world.

So I'm grateful for those gifts and talents and opportunities and the good days and the bad days they've created the Trisha Stafford-Odom I am today. And hopefully those are thing that I can instill in my children. I have a big 13 year old, Trajan Odom. He's an athlete, three sports, wearing a size 14 shoe.

Shianne: Oh wow.

Coach Trisha: I've got a 14 year old who's wearing a size 15 shoe, three sport athlete. Pretty special, Omari Odom. So right now between my husband Dwayne and I, who's also an athlete, Dwayne was a division one Cal Berkeley Football player, did some time with the San Diego chargers and the Canadian Football League. I'm thinking that we've meshed together to make some stuff good enough to a pretty athletic world. And you know? God's grace. I mean, again, being athletes, we can now relate to our kids differently and tell them you're different than the rest, so you have to behave accordingly.

Shianne: Yeah. You have some athletes on your hands for sure.

Coach Trisha: Yeah. Pretty good dudes. Pretty good dudes. Students first, strong young men that we hope we're creating and children of God and just respectful people.

Shianne: Yeah.

Coach Trisha: We're definitely going to be proud of as we continue to move forward in life.

Something Unique About Coach Trisha

Shianne: One question I wanted to ask you, might put you on the spot a little bit, but what is one thing no one knows about you that you can share with us?

Coach Trisha: Oh my goodness. That's crazy, that could go any direction.

Shianne: I know I kind of put you on the spot. Whatever you want to share.

Coach Trisha: Okay, I sing a little bit, I'm a preacher's kid, so I'm a pastor's kid, preacher's kid, all my life. My brother's a pastor, my father was a pastor. So I was on the praise and worship team, I would get scared to death to have to lead songs, but I could sing them out loud in my mirror in the bathroom and be pretty doggone good. So I think I'm blessed with that. And some people have heard me sing, some not, but I think I'm kind of shy. People always tell me I'm not, but I do think I'm kind of shy. My feet, I think I have like an athlete toes, I need prettier feet, I think that's probably what I'd go with. The bunion, years of wearing basketball shoes and cleats and all the sports that I've played, took a little toll on my feet. So I'm not necessarily a foot model, I'd say that.

Shianne: I love that. I love that. You can sing, and then you play basketball and you have the feet to prove it.

Coach Trisha: Right, that's right.

Shianne: I love that.

Coach Trisha: Nobody can take that away from me.

Shianne: Just as we're wrapping up, what's your next adventure? I know you guys are kind of wrapping up your season, but what are you most excited about?

Upcoming Adventures for Coach Trisha & Her Team

Coach Trisha: Well short goal, we play tomorrow, we actually finished our season out with, like I said, our rival tomorrow. Hopefully we can complete them. It's going to be tough, but hopefully we can do that. That would put a great into a season because that will actually put us at a winning conference record, which in year three, that'd be the first for me and the first probably for this women's basketball program. We'd end up, I think nine and seven. So that'd be great, moving into the tournament with a lot of momentum that happens next week in Norfolk, Virginia.

But other than that, ultimately winning the NIAC tournament so that we can be seated and put in a position to play in the NCAA tournament. I'm playing against all the division one schools that I used to coach at, the Duke, Carolina, the UCLA. All those teams are HBCU, historically black college and universities, we'll be in a position to represent our school on a national stage, North Carolina Central in the NCAA tournament.

So that's what we're looking forward to. I've got some stellar talent. I've actually got a rookie of the year in Anessa Rivera. She had some injuries this year so I don't know if she'll meet the qualifications, but statistically she's a national WBCA rookie of the year. She's going to be amazing. Paulina Frey, I've got some serious talent on that team. So I'm looking forward to the respect they garner by way of conference awards, all defense, all tournament, all everything. I'm just excited for these young ladies because they're graduating and I want them to go out with a bang, understanding that their efforts that they put into their athletics and to basketball, into my program, was not in vain.

Shianne: Yeah, no, that's awesome. And I feel like, as you said, you've kind of the last couple of three years that you've been there, you've kind of every year have gotten better and better and you want to go out with a bang and especially to wrap up your last season, your game tomorrow and hopefully keep moving on into the March madness. That's what it's all about.

Coach Trisha: Well, that's what my staff and I are aiming towards. I mean, I'll say this, I mean, I've got one of the best staff, coaching staff and my director of basketball, director of basketball operations that there is. And I say that honestly and wholeheartedly for any woman trying to play professional basketball. I mean, we have a staff of three former WNBA players. Myself, Tynesha Lewis, who was an NC state all American, played in the WNBA for several years. There's Erlina Larkin, who's not only a WNBA player, a long time repper, but she won a championship in the WNBA, played for university of North Carolina.

I've got Jason Harris who's a superstar coach, former professional player overseas, he's in the DC, Maryland area. And he coached a stellar high school program and coached for one of the top AAU programs in the country. So my staff is incredible. Then I've also stolen another tar heel and my director of basketball operations who eventually will be an athletic director, Clarissa Adams, she's amazing. So this staff is young and excited and motivated to do some things that a lot of people don't even have the aspirations to do. So we are doing our part, which actually happens to be our model DYP, do your part.

Shianne: I love that. And it sounds like you just have a loaded coaching staff, not just coaches or whatever, but you guys are mentors, you care about your girls. I love it.

Coach Trisha: Thank you so much.

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