This weekend, Marissa Coleman will be inducted into Maryland’s Hall of Fame along with her coach Brenda Frese. Coleman was part of the NCAA title-winning 2006 team, and the No. 2 pick in the 2009 WNBA Draft. These days, she’s often asked how different the world she played in is from today. Storied Sports’ Erin Foley sat down with Marissa to look at the NCAA past, the present and future.
FOLEY: Do you ever see the freedom college athletes have now, with NIL and transfer rules, and think about how different your experience might have been?
COLEMAN: We would have all made good money, especially after we won. Every generation should have it better than the previous, right? That's growth and that's evolution. That's just how it should be. I wouldn't have wanted to be a woman in the 1950s. It’s perspective.
FOLEY: Sounds like there is a “but” coming…
COLEMAN: But more so when you see people transfer, like they're on their third and fourth schools. There's no loyalty. I love that I can go back to the University of Maryland. It still feels like home and my people are still there. The number one thing I'm most grateful for, the relationships that I've cultivated through Maryland. (Crystal Langhorne) is my best friend. We're all still so close, and I'm not sure that we’d have that closeness.
Part of the fun of college is being a struggling college student where you're going to the bar and you're getting $2 drinks and you're doing fun college kids stuff. Now they're getting bottle service for thousands of dollars and they're driving these crazy cars.
FOLEY: As a fan even, you get attached to players and its tough to see them go. I think about Olivia Miles, who spends three years at Notre Dame and then goes to TCU.
COLEMAN: I know there was friction between her and (Hannah) Hildalgo, but then you learn how to work out friction in the backcourt. It's all life.
It's life lessons.
FOLEY: It seems like a lot comes at you pretty quickly at 18 or 19 if you are at that level. How do you even understand the opportunities, and the risks?
COLEMAN: You recruit these kids and you tell their parents, ‘It's a family. I'm helping them become a great young woman, great young man,’ but we all know most places are not like that. So I think that it's the NCAA responsibility, the government's responsibility to put a protections in place. There needs to be some financial literacy component.
FOLEY: Speaking of family, it sounds like you actually had that at Maryland, and now the Hall of Fame this weekend. How do you take that moment in?
COLEMAN: Hall of Fame at Maryland, where I grew up, it's super, super special.
FOLEY: And then going in with coach Frese is icing on the cake!
COLEMAN: She's one of few coaches that I believe when she talks about being in your life forever and creating a family dynamic. She actually means it. That's why I keep going back. That's why Maryland is so special to me because of the people they put in my life. I'm so thankful.
