Rebecca Lobo

She's changing the look-and face-of the sidelines in youth sports.

- 

OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST. WNBA trailblazer. Expert commentator. The list of achievements on basketball great Rebecca Lobo's résumé is long. Yet there's another (arguably just as important) role that's received little fanfare over the years: youth basketball coach in Connecticut. Far from a vanity project, founding and leading the CT Force has given Rebecca the opportunity to normalize women coaches to a whole new generation of players.

“Coaching wasn't something that I ever thought about,” Rebecca says. “But once I had kids and they were old enough to play sports, I knew I wanted to coach them.” All four of her kids—three daughters and one son— played under her watchful eye from grades two through eight. During her daughters’ junior high years, Rebecca observed some of the not-so-great-behavior being modeled on the boys’ side of the gym.