Tamara Tatham still blazing trails on basketball court
TORONTO — Tamara Tatham knows a thing or two about being a trailblazer and someone that young athletes can look to for inspiration and, in the latest iteration of her life, she’s happy to keep doing it.
The 32-year-old native of Brampton was named to the coaching staff of the G League Raptors 905 on Tuesday, the first Canadian woman to ever have a coaching job in a major North American professional men’s league.
It’s an honour, she said, and a responsibility she takes quite seriously. “Definitely proud to have young women and just people in general look up to me,” Tatham said Wednesday. “I want to continue doing it.
“It’s why I had such a great time being with the national team (as a mentor to an agegroup team this past summer) and at the U of T making my mark on young women and seeing how I can mentor and help inspire them. I take joy in it every single day.”
Tatham, 32, spent last season as an assistant with the University of Toronto Blues after a stellar international career ended with a season in France. She will continue in that role this season while doubling up with Raptors 905 responsibilities.
Tatham, who played for Canada at the 2012 London and ’16 Rio Olympics, joins the staff of Raptors 905 head coach Jama Mahlalela, announced Tuesday by the G League franchise.
Adding Tatham to a staff that already includes former Brock University coach Charles Kissi goes with Mahlalela’s stated mandate to help improve the level of coaching across the country while working with the sports governing body to provide opportunities.
“I think hiring Canadian coaches is what I can do right away,” Mahlalela said last weekend while conducting a coaching clinic in Mississauga. “I was given an opportunity as a young Canadian to work in the professional ranks, and I need then to give that back. And that’s what I’m going to do with my staff. Phase 2 is, how do we work with the national governing body to say, what’s their growth and development plan … how do both programs start to work together.”
Mahlalela stuck to his words by putting together staff almost exclusively built on Canadian coaches.
Joining Kissi are Charles Dubé-Brais, a Quebec-raised coach who has been in Asia and Europe; Trevor Pridie, a native of Abbotsford, B.C., who was an assistant at University of Fraser Valley last season; and Arsalan
Jamil, a Mississauga resident born in Pakistan who has been on the NBA Raptors basketball operations staff for five years.
“To see how the growth with Canadian coaching has been going? It’s crazy and it’s awesome to be a part of,” Tatham said.
“I’m feeling like a trailblazer right now, definitely feeling like that. It was really cool to be a part of that first gold medal with the Team Canada women at the (2015 Toronto) Pan Am Games, that was a trail-blazing moment for us, and now I’m doing it again in the coaching field and it’s awesome.”
A.J. Diggs and Ryan Schmidt return from the 905’s 2017-18 staff, and current Jr. NBA head coach Justin Alliman joins Tatham as coaches to be mentored by Mahlalela and his staff.
Tatham is not the first woman to serve on a Raptors 905 coaching staff.
Nikki Gross spent two seasons working with Jerry Stackhouse
on his staff that won the 2016-17 D League championship and played in the league final last spring.
But Tatham is the first Canadian woman on any current North America men’s team staff. There are three women assistants in the NBA — Becky Hammon in San Antonio, Jennie Boucek in Dallas and Sacramento’s Nancy Lieberman.
Tatham graduated from the University of Massachusetts after a high school career at Chinguacousy, and was in the Canadian program from 2007 until she retired after Canada posted a top-eight finish at the Rio Games in ’16.
She played in all the major professional leagues in her career and was a multiple all-star during five seasons in Germany. She also played in France, Russia, Australia — where she was coached by Claudia Brassard, another Canadian Olympian — and Slovakia.