USA Basketball announced Monday that Kara Lawson, the current head coach at Duke and a decorated former national team player, will lead the women’s national team through 2028. Her tenure will include the 2026 FIBA World Cup and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. She succeeds Cheryl Reeve, who guided the team to gold medals at the 2022 World Cup and the 2024 Olympics.
Lawson, 44, has been deeply involved with USA Basketball for decades. Her journey began as a 17-year-old player in the 1998 World Youth Games and included a gold medal as a member of the 2008 Olympic team. She transitioned to coaching within the program, leading the U.S. to the inaugural 3×3 Olympic gold medal in Tokyo in 2021 and serving as an assistant coach for the senior national team during its gold-medal run in the same cycle.
“Her international basketball experience is extensive, including 13 gold medals,” USA Basketball CEO Jim Tooley said in a statement. “To say her journey with us has been impressive is an understatement.”
The appointment is the first major decision by new national team managing director Sue Bird, Lawson’s former Olympic teammate. “Having shared the court with Kara, I know firsthand the leadership, competitive spirit and basketball IQ that she brings,” Bird said. “Kara has always had the respect of her teammates and her players, something she has earned and demonstrated over decades.”
Lawson inherits a program defined by historic dominance, having won 10 of 13 Olympic tournaments—including the last eight—and eight of the last 10 FIBA World Cups. She embraces the immense pressure that comes with this legacy.
“This is a job with high standards, and I love that, and I love the expectations that we have because it’s our job to rise to them and to meet them,” Lawson said. “To achieve anything meaningful in life, it’s supposed to be hard and it comes with risk. You can’t shy away from that.”
To continue this success, Lawson will focus on building strong relationships with players as the program enters a new era following the retirement of six-time Olympian Diana Taurasi. A new generation of stars, including Paige Bueckers, Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and JuJu Watkins, will be in consideration for the upcoming cycle. Lawson will also assemble a new staff of assistant coaches.
The challenge is amplified by the rapidly improving global competition. Team USA’s narrow one-point victory over France for the gold medal in Paris highlighted how difficult it is to remain on top.
“It’s challenging to win a game at a world competition, let alone win the whole tournament,” Lawson stated. “It’s incredibly difficult to do… We definitely look forward to competing against all these top teams.”
In her new role, Lawson follows in the footsteps of her college coach and mentor at Tennessee, Pat Summitt, who was the first person to both play for and later coach the U.S. Olympic team, continuing a lineage of excellence within the program.
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