On Saturday night, Becky Hammon, Gary Blair and the 1976 US Women’s Olympic Team were inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Here are highlights from the ceremony:
Becky Hammon
“Just be you. Just be you. Just be you.”
Those were the words that Becky Hammon consistently heard from fellow Class of 2023 Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Gregg Popovich during her time as an assistant coach with the San Antonio Spurs.
While Popovich repeated the phrase to pour courage and confidence into Hammon after he made her the first woman to serve as a NBA assistant coach in 2014, Hammon has reached basketball’s heights because she always has just been her.
As Hammon said during her speech, “I’m not going to give you the traditional basketball speech because, quite frankly, there’s nothing traditional about me.”
She emphasized how “heart, grit, will and a strong mind” took her from the Black Hills of South Dakota to the spotlight of Madison Square Garden to the court and sideline in San Antonio to a record-breaking opportunity in Las Vegas to, on Saturday night, the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Hammon also passed along a number of the simple mantras that have motivated her through her lifetime journey in the sport she long knew she loved (just like she knew she loved…
