Influential coach mentor, Lisa Williams, has honed the skills of over 130 coaches across three cohorts (and will work with hundreds more across the programme’s three-year cycle) – providing coaches with the tools, techniques and strategies to enhance their basketball player development philosophy.
Her guiding principle for them all is: ‘coach basketball the right way’.
“I love basketball. I sleep and drink it and could talk about it for hours and hours – what’s right with it, what needs to change. And I am very passionate about making sure that people play it the right way, learn it the right way, teach it the right way. That's always kind of been my philosophy,” said Williams, who is a sports lecturer at Croydon College.
Her dedication to the art of coach mentoring has recently been recognised by the UK’s leading organisation for coaches of sport and physical activity – UK Coaching – who announced Williams as a finalist in the Coach Developer of the Year category for the 2024 UK Coaching Awards.
Williams is one of a handful of female basketball coaches in London and over the decades says she has experienced ignorance and prejudice from male counterparts in the game.
When she was head coach of the men’s team at Queen Mary University of London, she would often go to games – dressed in the university’s tracksuit – and the male referees or table officials would bypass her and ask her partner (who would be there to support her and dressed in civvies) if he was the coach.
Frustrating.
Having felt that she must prove herself and justify her coaching ability, Williams is a passionate mentor for and advocate of women and girls basketball coaches.
That’s why she has set up a female sports coaching collective – a place where female coaches can come together to talk about coaching, and the issues and struggles that they have faced.
“I wanted to develop a space where women could share experiences, knowledge and information and support each other. To make them feel more confident in that they know their stuff.”
This year, Williams ran an all-female coaching session as part of the London Coaches Program. The cohort of 25+ coaches, included women from across London of all different ages, and religious and ethnic backgrounds.
“I think for them, it was really eye opening to see someone who is passionate about coaching and fighting for them, saying, ‘yes, you can do XYZ, and don't let anybody tell you that you can't be a basketball coach. Don't let anybody tell you that you should only coach girls. You can coach men and boys. You can coach whoever you want’.
“It's the knowledge that matters. Not the gender. I feel it’s important that that message constantly gets told, especially to young, up and coming female coaches, so that they feel confident enough to go into spaces and own them,” said the Londoner.
Williams’ basketball journey begins with the Brixton Topcats, where she played as a junior and senior player.
It was there that legendary coach and club founder, Jimmy Rogers, instigated her love of coaching, as his ethos was that all Topcats should know how to coach – so, Williams completed her Level 1 coaching qualification as a teenager, quickly progressing to Level 2 and delivered a schools programme on behalf of the London Towers.
When she worked as a basketball development officer at London South Bank University, Williams became a Level 3 basketball coach and coached the women’s team, instigating a new high-performance basketball environment that incorporated nutrition and strength and conditioning.
Williams’ coaching ingenuity and dedication to the team saw them make the final fours of the BUCS competition for the first time, despite the fact they were a non-Premier League squad.
During that time, Williams also became one of Basketball England’s coach education tutors and has subsequently delivered coaching qualification programmes and workshops to 1000s of coaches.
After South Bank University, Williams worked as a senior community development officer with the Reach and Teach Sports Network, running a coach education programme. She continued to tutor for Basketball England, delivering Level 1 refereeing and table officiating courses and working with legendary tutor and coach Patricia Fairclough OBE to make sure everyone working in basketball – no matter the role – was developed to a high level.
After having her son, Williams came back to coaching as the co-head coach of the London All-Stars women’s team, who play in the Women's National Basketball League, as well as in the London Metropolitan Basketball League. Her focus for the team is engaging and empowering women and girls into basketball and building an environment that supports the development of women in sport.
And whilst coaching is her talent, Williams still balls out; having been selected to play for the Great Britain women’s basketball team at this year’s FIMBA Maxibasketball European Championship in Italy.
“It feels amazing that I had an opportunity to represent GB at my age. I have played and coached basketball at a high level for many years and have been afforded so many positive opportunities through my love of sport. This is something that I can tick off my bucket list and add to the positive experiences that I have in my memory bank.
“It’s also empowering to the young girls I coach. For them to see me and other players still doing what they are just starting to do shows the opportunities available to them if they continue to work hard.”
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