Penn State Sports Magazine
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5 6 J U N E / J U L Y 2 0 2 6 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M career points. Kraft called her "one of the greatest to ever wear a Lady Lion uniform." Following her Penn State career, Wright moved on to the WNBA. Drafted 12th overall by the Seattle Storm in 2005, she became a fixture in the team's backcourt over the next decade. She helped Seattle make nine playoff ap- pearances in her 10 seasons in the Emer- ald City, including a league champion- ship in 2010. Along the way, she earned first-team WNBA All-Defensive honors five times. After leaving Seattle, Wright spent time with the New York Liberty and Minnesota Lynx, and she later played professionally in Israel, France, Poland and Turkey. Eager to stay involved with the game, she moved into coaching in 2017 as an assistant at UNC Charlotte. That led her back to the WNBA and two seasons as an assistant with the Las Vegas Aces. Her first head coaching job soon followed. Wright was hired to take charge of the Atlanta Dream, a team beset with chemistry problems stem- ming from players' disenchantment with co-owner Kelly Loeffler, a for- mer U.S. senator. After going 8-24 the year before Wright's arrival, the Dream went 33-43 in her first two seasons as coach, then backslid to 15-25 in Year 3. A coaching change followed, and Wright resurfaced as an assistant with the Chicago Sky. Looking back on her five-season ten- ure as a WNBA coach, Wright said re- cently that she views it as an asset now that she's taking over Penn State's pro- gram at a time when the college game is becoming increasingly professional- ized. "I'm in a unique position being that I come from the pros," she said. "We look at the collegiate landscape now, and it's heading that way in terms of NIL and different things like that. "I think my experiences with being in the pro game — dealing with roster management, dealing with contracts, dealing with agents, building those re- lationships — positions me to be able to handle the landscape now. "I think historically, Penn State has done a good job of recruiting. Now it's a matter of getting back to some of those old ways and figuring out how we can go tackle those things." No Timetable Wright has a difficult job ahead of her. It's now been 12 years since the Lady Li- ons last made the NCAA Tournament, and to get back there, they'll have to navigate a Big Ten minefield that is even more challenging than it was when she was a player. Of the seven schools that the league has added in the past 15 years, three have won national titles, including this year's champ, UCLA. Programs that were down for years, like Michigan, Indi- ana and Minnesota, are now up. To help bring her program back, Wright has tapped into Penn State's history. Two of her assistant coaches — Kelly Mazzante and Susan Robinson Fruchtl — are former PSU All-Ameri- cans, with the former ranking as the program's all-time leading scorer with 2,919 points, and the latter ranking third in points (2,253) and second in rebounds (1,070). At her introductory news conference, Wright was asked when she thought it might be realistic for Penn State to finish with a winning record — something it has done only twice in the past 12 years — and also when it could aspire to reach the NCAA Tournament. For entirely under- standable reasons, she declined to offer a timeline for when those goals might come to fruition. But she did pledge to put in as much work as necessary to bring about a revival. "We know that this place can have success because we've seen it. There is a blueprint for it," she said. "I'm not veering too far off the path. Attack the blueprint and build it up one day at a time. It didn't happen overnight when I was here, and it didn't happen overnight when Susan Robinson was here. It took time. So that's the plan — build it up step by step, day by day. "We're going to put the energy and the effort in, and we are going to rebuild the program back to what we know it to be. … I know this is going to be a fun job. It won't be without its challenges, but we're going to have a good time do- ing it." ■ Wright helped lead Penn State to four NCAA Tourna- ment appearances during her playing career from 2001- 05. She's the program's eighth-leading scorer with 1,995 career points. PHOTO COURTESY PENN STATE ATHLETICS "We know that this place can have success because we've seen it. There is a blueprint for it. I'm not veering too far off the path. Attack the blueprint and build it up one day at a time. It didn't happen overnight when I was here, and it didn't happen overnight when Susan Robinson was here. It took time." W R I G H T