GETTING TO KNOW COACH GARY KLOPPENBURG

The coach of the 2020 WNBA champion Seattle Storm got his start with basketball and coaching right here in San Diego. It didn’t hurt that Gary Kloppenburg got to grow up absorbing the basketball knowledge of his dad, Bob Kloppenburg, known as a defensive guru who went on to become an assistant coach for multiple NBA basketball teams. But first Bob coached at California Western University, which was located where Point Loma Nazarene University is now. It changed its name in 1968 and moved away from Point Loma in 1973.

Gary Kloppenburg grew up in La Jolla, playing basketball and graduating from La Jolla High School. He continued his playing days at Feather River College and UC San Diego before finding a comfortable transition into coaching.

He has been an assistant coach for both NBA and WNBA teams and was elevated to head coach of the Seattle Storm this season when Dan Hughes opted to sit out the season for medical concerns during the pandemic. Kloppenburg lead the team in the “wubble,” an on-site, restricted basketball campus and series of protocols, similar to what was used by the NBA, also in Florida.

He joined the Name

Drop San Diego podcast to talk about his coaching philosophy, what made the 2020 Seattle Storm so great and more. Read excerpts here or listen to the full episode in your favorite listening app.

On the Storm’s big win: They were such a great team. They were the epitome of what you would envision from a team. Unselfish, nobody cared about individual accolades. From our best player on down to our 12th player, they were just so united and focused. It was just a godsend for me to be able to coach a team of players like that, an example of what you would want a team to be.

Not only were they great, skilled basketball players, but they were just highly advanced people, and I would say that about our league as well. As a leadership group in the world, they showed what you can do on a world stage to try to advance not only a high level of basketball but the advancement for justice for the human race worldwide.

On coaching in the WNBA versus the NBA:

The most rewarding thing about coaching the women is they’re just very coachable and you don’t have a lot of selfish agendas. Sometimes with the NBA because of the money and the tremendous publicity and hype that goes along with it, it’s not as pure of a game. The women’s game, especially at the pro level, it’s their living and the women can make pretty good money ... but their conscientiousness, their ability to develop an unselfish chemistry with their team, to me that’s the difference . ... For me it’s just been really enjoyable to coach the WNBA. What the women can do skill-wise is really on par and equal to the men.

Obviously, you don’t have the dunking and the high flying that the men do, but as far as the shooting, the ball skill, ball handling, passing, defensive ability, they’re really on par with the men . ...

The men’s game is a powerful game. Women’s game, to me, is very fundamental . ... It’s always interesting to see the old coaches, my dad, Tex Winter when he was alive, all those old-school coaches love the women’s game because it reminds them of back when basketball was developing in the ’50s and ’60s at the college level when fundamentals were so important.