MINNEAPOLIS — Cheryl Reeve waited a decade before getting a shot to be a WNBA head coach.
She had been a part of WNBA franchises that folded or relocated.
Those difficult moments tested her conviction as she grinded as an assistant.
Her family reminded her she held two degrees.
Others suggested she coach college ball.
But Reeve is stubborn as hell.
She knew what she wanted.
“I’m a WNBA person,” she vividly recalls telling those around her. “If this thing goes down, I’m going down with it. And I’m going to stick it out.”
Look how that panned out.
Twenty-six years later, and in the WNBA’s 30th season, Reeve is the all-time winningest head coach at a time when the league has never been more popular.
Reeve, 59, captured her 380th regular-season win with the Minnesota Lynx Wednesday to unseat legendary coach Mike Thibault.
She looks to potentially add to the record Saturday when the Lynx host the Liberty.
Reeve’s persistence coupled with her competitive fire and sustained success have made her one of the greatest coaches of this millennium.
Reeve is a four-time WNBA champion, vying for her fifth this season after many counted the Lynx out due to roster turnover and uncertainty heading into this campaign.
Fresh off of being inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame late last month, Reeve is a frontrunner for Coach of the Year, an award she’s won four times already.
In a profession where people are hired to be fired, Reeve is a rarity.
She’s a trademark of longevity, having spent the past 16-plus years with the Lynx.
The key to her staying power is her success.
Making the playoffs is an expectation for the franchise under Reeve.
As a result, Minnesota has gone to 14 of the past 15 postseasons and appeared in seven WNBA Finals during that span.
Reeve on Friday recalled her early career challenges of being overlooked for WNBA jobs in favor of NBA men thought to be more qualified than her despite never coaching in the WNBA.
When she got the chance to coach the Lynx ahead of the 2010 season, she said she wasn’t worried about her contract length.
“I wanted the opportunity,” she said. “I didn’t care if it gave me one year. If I was good enough, I was good enough, and I still feel that way today. I’m not worried about my job and that’s a real blessing for me.”
As for the WNBA, Reeve said she is proud of how far the league has come.
“I was always really hopeful at that time that we could get here,” she said. “We had to push, pull, drag, kick all the things, it doesn’t matter. The fight’s been worth it.
For years, Reeve tried to separate her identity from her job.
She loved to coach, and she loved basketball, but it wasn’t who Reeve saw herself as.
But who is she kidding now?
“It is my identity, and I can stand in that,” Reeve said. “I do care deeply about being a wife, being a mom, but ultimately basketball, it is my identity, it is my life. There’s no way around that, and I stand in that and there’s nothing to be ashamed of in saying that.”
And Reeve has no plans to stop any time.
She has the same drive she had when she took the job 17 years ago.
She’s fueled by a desire to win a championship with her current group.
That, “and greed,” she said.
“I’m a pretty passionate person in general,” she said. “When that passion doesn’t hit the same way or it’s not there when I don’t care that we lost a possession, when I don’t care that we didn’t block out, or when I don’t care that we … whatever it is, that’s when you’ll know. But I can tell you, [my players] can tell you today that the passion’s still there.”
