That experience was a once-in-a-lifetime situation, not only because I was so young and starting out in my coaching career -- that was the fourth year I had ever coached in any sport -- but it taught me a lot about the game of basketball. It taught me a lot about the business side of basketball, and it also just made me tougher.

Stephanie Ready

Stephanie Ready is an American broadcaster for the National Basketball Association's Charlotte Hornets and a former basketball coach who became the first female coach of a men's professional league team in 2001. From 2001 to 2003, she was an assistant coach for the now defunct Greenville Groove of the National Basketball Development League. After several years as the Hornets' sideline reporter and host, Ready was named an analyst on August 27, 2015, making her the first full-time female NBA game analyst. Ready was also a part-time sideline reporter for The NBA on TNT during the 2006 and 2007 NBA Playoffs, and the WNBA Playoffs on ESPN2 during 2006. Also in 2006 and 2007, Ready worked as a sideline reporter during the first and second rounds of the Women's Final Four of college basketball for ESPN2. Ready is an alumna of Coppin State University in Baltimore, Maryland.

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