Year: 2022
Award: Professional Coach of the Year
Location/Affiliation: Las Vegas Aces, Women’s Basketball
- WNBA Champions
- WNBA Coach of the Year
When Becky Hammon stepped foot in Fort Collins and started playing for Colorado State University in 1995, who knew nearly 3 decades later we would still be talking about Becky, her number of “firsts” and how she continues to inspire and conquer in the basketball world and beyond.
Her playing career resume is lengthy and impressive and now her coaching career is catching up. In 2014 she became an assistant coach in the NBA. As time went on, Becky was also a summer league NBA head coach and an acting head coach during a Spurs game when Greg Popovich was ejected. In December of 2021, Becky was hired to be the head coach of the Las Vegas Aces, a team she played for from 2007-2014.
In 2022, her rookie season as a head coach, Becky led her team to a WNBA Championship with the Aces taking a best of five series against the Connecticut Sun. In doing so, she became the first rookie WNBA head coach to win a title, and because of that, Becky Hammon was named the WNBA Coach of the Year and is our Professional Coach of the Year.