In her freshman year on the women’s basketball team at Hofstra University, Billi Godsey fractured her shin. After surgery to implant a titanium rod, she was assured the bone would not break again. She went on to excel on the hardwood during her sophomore and junior years.
In her senior year, Godsey was excited about working with the team’s new coach, Felisha Legette-Jack. But two months into the season, Godsey’s shin fractured again—bringing an end to her playing days. Instead of letting Godsey sit idle on the sidelines, Legette-Jack used the remainder of the season to teach Godsey—who had an interest in coaching since childhood—about what went into being a coach.
“I was allowed to come into the basketball offices during the day and watch film, break it down with them and see how the coaching staff worked,” Godsey recalls. “For her to bring me into that …, it impacted me and made me really, truly understand that [coaching] is what I wanted to do.
“So much more goes into the mentoring of young women than just putting them in the right spots on the court,” Godsey adds. “There’s so much thought and effort that goes into it.”
Legette-Jack’s mentorship put Godsey, 32, on a path that in 10 short years led her to become head coach of a Division I program. In May 2013, Godsey was named head women’s basketball coach at Iona College, making her one of a relatively small but emerging group of young women of color becoming head coaches.
According to NCAA data for the 2012-13 season, of the 323 programs (HBCUs excluded) in Division I women’s college basketball, there were 193 female coaches, 35 of whom were African-American.
