Duke coach Kara Lawson passes on lessons learned from Tennessee legend Pat Summitt
SACRAMENTO, CA — Days after the Duke women's basketball team lost in the Elite Eight last year, Blue Devils coach Kara Lawson called guard Taina Mair into her office with a clear goal in mind. Lawson aimed to push Mair outside of her comfort zone, wanting the typically-guarded player to become a more vocal leader. “She was like, ‘I need to hear you in my dreams,’” Mair said.
“'I need to have nightmares about your voice. '" The conversation was like one Lawson’s college coach and mentor, late Tennessee coach Pat Summitt, might have had with her. “Whenever she talks about her, you can see a little glow in her eye,” Duke junior forward Delaney Thomas said of Lawson’s connection with Summitt.
“You can tell that she really loved her. ” With her team in its second consecutive Elite Eight, Lawson is ascending to an elite tier of coaches – a group Summitt, who died a decade ago, once led. “I know I'm made for this,” Lawson said in the moments after No.
3 seed Duke beat No. 2 LSU with a dramatic buzzer beater on March 27. “And I don't think it.
I know I am. And that doesn't mean I think I'm better than anybody. “But I think when you're walking and aligned in your purpose and what you're meant to do – and you're doing it at the place that you're supposed to be doing it at, with the players that you're supposed to be doing it with – it allows you to just be so clear-minded on things.