Why Sue Bird says Duke’s Kara Lawson is ‘perfectly positioned’ to coach Olympic team

Kara Lawson arrived at Cameron Indoor Stadium armed with notes, rehearsed remarks and her typical calm composure. Preparation is one of Lawson’s trademarks, and Tuesday — the day she was formally introduced as the next head coach of the U.S. women’s national basketball team — was no different.

After a long procession of USA Basketball representatives — including Chairman Martin Dempsey, CEO Jim Tooley and Women’s National Team Director Briana Gould — Lawson was finally called to the stage.

“Your journey here has perfectly positioned you and prepared you for this moment,” said Sue Bird, the team’s new managing director and Lawson’s former Olympic teammate. “And honestly, without further ado, I’m just gonna bring you up.”

Little did she know at the time, Lawson had made a rare miscalculation. What she didn’t account for was the number of tissues she would need.

She walked onto the stage, hugged Bird and posed for a photo op with her “LAWSON” Team USA jersey. Cheers and applause filled the arena. Bird stepped off the stage. The moment was all hers.

Lawson scanned the room, glanced down, brushed her hair and exhaled. She tried to compose herself. She could handle the moment — until she couldn’t. Her face twitched. She shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose. Sniffling, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe her eyes.

“The game just got started, and I already need a timeout — crazy,” Lawson said, breaking over 30 seconds of silence.

Sniffling, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe her eyes.

“I came prepared.”

Pat Summitt’s spirit in the building

One of the reasons for Lawson’s emotion — and for her even getting to this point — couldn’t be there in person, but a spot was saved for them nonetheless.

Next to where Lawson’s family sat, at the front row of the press conference, a bouquet of orange flowers marked a chair with a placard: “Reserved for Coach Pat Summitt.”

When Lawson spoke of Summitt — her legendary coach at Tennessee — the handkerchief came out again. Lawson never thought she’d be in the same sentence as Summitt. Not ever. How could she think that, given everything Summitt had accomplished?

But on Tuesday, as Lawson opened her speech by naming all the USA olympic coaches that came before her, she did just that: placed her name next to her role model’s.

“The first coach of the U.S. women’s national team to coach in an LA Olympics was Pat Summitt,” Lawson later added. Just saying it out loud brought another wave of emotion. Once again Lawson bowed her head. She sniffled. She rubbed her hands together.

Lawson took 25 seconds to regain her composure and resume her speech.

It was that kind of day: celebratory and ceremonial, but also deeply emotional and personal. From family to colleagues to former teammates, the turnout made Tuesday feel as much like a Lawson family reunion as a press conference. Her mother, Kathleen, sat in the front row with her two sisters — all of whom were targets of a few good-natured jokes.

Lawson teased that her mother was still nervous and needed repeated assurance that Lawson already got the job. Lawson joked her sisters didn’t really care about basketball. But they changed their wardrobes accordingly as Lawson bounced from one spot to the next. They wore orange when Lawson played at Tennessee, purple when she joined won a 2005 WNBA championship with the Sacramento Monarchs. They donned green of when Lawson served on the Boston Celtics staff in 2019-2020. Now, of course, they wear Duke blue. Lawson also thanked her family for staying up in the middle of the night to watch her coach USA Basketball’s 3x3 team in Asia, Europe and South America over the years. Maybe 132 other people were watching those YouTube livestreams, Lawson estimated.

She even directed a joke or two at her late father, William. He had a reserved seat on Tuesday, too, right next to Summitt. Had William been there, he would’ve taken Jay Bilas’ place in running the press conference, Lawson mused.

“He would’ve wanted to be front and center for sure,” Lawson said. “But I know he’d be really proud of this day and the work that it took for me to get here.”

Getting the call from `Birdie’

Lawson couldn’t have prepared for the call she got from Bird, although she tried.

Lawson knew the announcement was coming — it’s the first year of the quad (the four year cycle ahead of the Olympics). This is when USA Basketball traditionally names its head coach, Lawson explained. She figured she was a candidate, but didn’t know if she’d get the job.

“Birdie,” as Lawson calls her longtime friend, delivered the news while Lawson was in the Atlanta airport. Not exactly the setting she may have imagined for the biggest professional call of her life, but one she joked will always be a special place now.

Even though she didn’t think of Summitt at that moment, the Hall of Fame coach remains an undeniably constant presence in Lawson’s life.

“She’s been the most powerful influence on how I coach, how I structure my program, foundationally, what I do,” Lawson said in a media scrum following Tuesday morning practice with her Duke squad.

That morning, as on any day, Lawson’s coaching reflected the lessons of Summitt. Decked out in a Team USA sweatsuit, she told the gathered reporters they’d caught her on a bad day.

The Blue Devils were coming off a good summer, and a really good fall, but — outside of seniors Taina Mair and Ashlon Jackson — the team wasn’t sharp on Tuesday.

“The focus and the urgency we’ve been known to play with — we didn’t have that as much as I would have liked,” Lawson said. “We had it in spurts but not as long. And I get it, it’s the second day [of practice], but the standard is the standard. You have to play to it.”

That standard, as Lawson’s said in the past, comes from Summitt. It’s the reason why, as Bird later recounted on Tuesday, “you always knew she [Lawson] was going to be prepared.”

Bird reflected on their time as teammates in the 2008 Olympics. There was an intensity to Lawson: the look in her eyes that told you “she was going for the jugular.” The way Lawson approached practice, games — even shoot-arounds.

“When we were walking through plays, Kara would be making the hard cut,” Bird said. “We were like, ‘We’re all walking.’ Kara’s making the hard cut because she wasn’t gonna miss a moment.

When the championship game came around, Lawson “stepped up, balled out and got us that gold medal,” said Bird.

“Nobody on that roster was surprised by that moment,” Bird said, “because that’s who Kara is.”

And now, Lawson stands on the precipice of leading the U.S. women’s national team to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics as its head coach.

Lawson isn’t sure yet on her exact vision for the program. Her and Bird still need to go into depth about staffing and players, with Bird taking point on appointments in both areas.

But Lawson is already prepared because of Summitt. When asked what advice her former college coach may have offered to her Tuesday, Lawson didn’t need a pause or handkerchief to answer.

“I think she would probably tell me to enjoy the opportunity, to be myself and to make sure we were good on defense.”

This story was originally published September 23, 2025 at 7:06 PM.