Lawson Set for Another Olympic Business Trip
Coach Kara & Former Blue Devil Point Guard Chelsea Gray Part of Dominant USA National Women's Team Program
Jim Sumner, GoDuke The Magazine
Kara Lawson was three years old when Los Angeles hosted the 1984 Olympics.
She says it was a transformative experience.
"Watched it, my parents explained it to me as best as I could understand it at three. I was enamored with it. That was my first athletic goal that I can remember, wanting to be an Olympian.”
Goal achieved. Lawson goes to Paris this month as an assistant coach for the U.S. Women’s National Team. It will be her third Olympics, in three different locations, in three different roles.
After a stellar basketball career at Tennessee that included three Final Fours, the Detroit Shock made Lawson the fifth pick of the 2003 WNBA draft. Five days later they traded her to Sacramento. She won a WNBA title there in 2005 and was named a WNBA All-Star there in 2007.
But she calls her selection to the 2008 U.S. Olympic team “definitely one of the highlights, if not the highlight, of my athletic career.”
The 2008 Olympics were held in Beijing. The U.S. team included such notables as Seimone Augustus, Tamika Catchings, Lisa Leslie and Candace Parker. Elite talent, but Lawson had no trouble fitting in.
“I don’t know if I’d call myself one of the stars,” she recalled. “We had some big ole stars on that team. I was more of a complementary piece. The best thing for me is that I understood how to play my role as a competitor and as a member of a team.”
The U.S. team blitzed the competition. The closest game in pool play was a 96-60 win over New Zealand. They defeated South Korea 94-60 and Russia 67-52 to advance to the gold medal game against undefeated Australia.
It was a blowout. Lawson led the U.S. team to a 92-65 win with a team-high 15 points. She didn’t miss a shot — five field goals and four foul shots worth of perfect.
“I got open shots because I think they were more worried about the other people than they were about me. That was okay. I was confident to take them and get it done. A great experience, not just to be a part of it but to contribute in the biggest game of the tournament was really satisfying on top of achieving the first goal you had as a young athlete. Being an Olympian but also winning the gold medal is an incredible accomplishment.”
Lawson retired from playing following the 2015 season. She spent time as an ESPN analyst and a skills coach for the Boston Celtics. In 2017 she was asked to coach the U.S. 3x3 team, a halfcourt variant of traditional basketball. Four players make up a team, with three playing at a given time.
Lawson had become head coach of the Duke women’s team by the time the summer of 2021 rolled around for the covid-delayed Tokyo Games. She coached a squad of Stephanie Dolson, Allisha Gray, Kelsey Plum and Jackie Young to the gold in the inaugural Olympic 3x3 competition.
No fans, emerging sport, a late roster change due to a positive covid test. In other words, not a routine experience.
“There’s no doubt it changed it,” Lawson says of the covid restrictions. “I guess on my team I was fortunate that we had four first-time Olympians. They had no idea what it normally was like. For all they knew this was normal. Certainly it was normal for all of us at that stage. We were just thankful that the games were happening. There were times during that stretch when we thought the whole thing might be canceled and we’d have to wait eight years.”
It still was the Olympics.
“It would have been great to have our families there,” Lawson noted. “But you go there as an athlete and as a coach with the focus of trying to be one of the world’s best, whether there’s fans in the stands or not. If there’s a competition going on, you want to come out on top. That group had an incredible amount of resiliency.”
The following year Lawson was invited to join the U.S. 5x5 national team as an assistant coach. Led by A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart, that squad won the 2022 FIBA World Cup, an undefeated tournament run capped off with an 83-61 win over China in the finals.
Thus it was no surprise that Lawson was asked to reprise that role in Paris.
Cheryl Reeve is the national team head coach. She led the American contingent to an exhibition win over Duke early in the 2023-24 season.
“Kara, what just oozes off her is just a love for the game,” Reeve said following that game. “Certainly, Kara, the person that she is, I think that she’s the epitome of USA Basketball. She’s a junkie. She’s a basketball junkie.”
Reeve and Lawson are joined on the staff by Joni Taylor and Mike Thibault, the same coaching quartet from 2022.
“Certainly to be selected by the committee to be an assistant coach is a great phone call to get back in 2022,” Lawson says. “I did my best to add value and that’s really been my goal every place I’ve been. Add something of value. To get the call that I’d be assisting again, I was thrilled.”
Lawson says there’s no specialization in the roles of the assistants.
“Everybody has a hand in everything. It’s not like an offensive coach or defensive coach or anything like that. Everyone has scouts. Everyone has teams they lock in and focus on. From a player development standpoint it’s kind of organic. I’m not assigned to work with a specific player or position group. I have a lot of relationships with a lot of the players and I tend to work with as many of them as I can.”
The United States has dominated women’s play in both the Olympics and FIBA competition, with seven straight Olympic gold medals and four straight FIBA World Cup titles.
Any concerns about overconfidence heading to Paris?
“There’s always a danger any time you’re successful,” Lawson said. “I think what’s made our group special is that we haven’t bought in to anything in the past that entitles us to anything in the future. We respect the opponents, we understand how difficult a task this is going to be.
“We have enough of a mix of new people and older people where the first-time Olympians, they don’t care that we’ve won seven before now, because they don’t have any gold medals. They want their first. For them, there’s an urgency, a desperation.”
The veterans?
“That’s all they’ve known. Winning. They don’t want to be known for anything else. That drives us to succeed.”
The loaded U.S. roster includes Wilson, Stewart, Alyssa Thomas, Diana Taurasi, Brittney Griner, Kelsey Plum and Napheesa Collier, among others.
And of course, former Duke great Chelsea Gray. Gray won gold in Tokyo and at the 2022 World Cup and has recovered from a leg injury that ended her 2023 WNBA season in the finals.
“She’s the best point guard in the world. How cool is that?” Lawson says. “She runs our team. She’s a veteran voice. She’s very, very competitive and really plays well in pressure moments, in big games. Oozes confidence, not only for herself but for her team. She’s awesome to coach. She has such a smart way about the way she sees the game and she communicates the game. She’s next level in terms of her feel. Her passing has been world-class for a long time.”
Still, Lawson says the rest of the field will concede nothing.
“The world is as talented, as deep as it’s ever been.” She calls host France “a wonderful team, really talented, presents a lot of problems. Skilled, lots of connectivity.” Australia is “tough, physical, fit.” China has “great size, skill and great depth.” Belgium, Japan, Germany, Canada, “we’re going to have our hands full for sure.”
There’s something else to be excited about. Duke should benefit from Lawson’s overseas experiences.
“It’s made me a better coach to go into that coach’s room every morning when we meet and you have the resumes that are in that room. To scheme, to talk about strategy, to game plan, it’s been a great professional development for me. That’s not why I’m going to the Olympics. I’m going to win. But when you talk about coaching, to be around other great coaches in a competitive environment, you learn a lot.”
The team will open play July 29 in Lille, several hours from Paris, but will stay in Paris. It’s a business trip. Lawson jokes that she might not be able to walk around and see the Eiffel Tower until four in the morning. But she adds that she’ll try to see at least one non-basketball event.
“If I can do more, great. But as a coach, your job is to be prepared. There’s always more film to watch, more things to go over.”
This story originally appeared in the 15.12 issue of GoDuke The Magazine – July 2024. Dedicated to sharing the stories of Duke student-athletes, present and past, GoDuke The Magazine is published for Duke Athletics by LEARFIELD with editorial offices at 3100 Tower Blvd., Suite 404, Durham, NC 27707. To subscribe, join the Iron Dukes or call 336-831-0767.