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Syracuse University Women’s Head Basketball Coach Felisha Legette-Jack spoke about her experience as a woman in a male-dominated field at Wednesday’s Women in Leadership Initiative conference. Throughout her talk in the JMA Dome, Legette-Jack emphasized unity in the workplace.

“We’re not asking for equality anymore. We’re asking for more,” Legette-Jack said. “We’ve been so behind for so many years that being equal makes no sense to me.”

Legette-Jack, a former Orange All-American, grew up in Syracuse, and graduated from SU in 1989. Her jersey now hangs in the rafters of the Dome, a first for any woman student-athlete at SU. After more than 30 years of collegiate coaching experience, Legette-Jack returned home to lead the SU women’s basketball team in March.

As a teenager, she said she walked with her head down.

“I saw no purpose for me looking in (people’s) eyes, because no one saw me anyway,” she said. “The fear that I had to make eye contact was so insurmountable, yet nobody noticed. The game of basketball allowed me to gain confidence.”

Legette-Jack’s high school counselor was worried SU wasn’t a good choice for her because the people there wouldn’t look like her or have the same background as her, the coach said. Her counselor suggested she look at other schools.

“I had decided to make a decision to go to Syracuse University and without blinking she said to me, ‘That’s not a good choice,’” Legette-Jack said. “If you are going to be successful young women, you need another woman to push you in the back because there’s another guy that’s willing to take your spot.”

Even though a woman told her no, Legette-Jack said it was also the women in her personal life, like her high school basketball coach, who pushed her to apply to SU even in the face of failure.

“Having women decide that you matter means something,” Legette-Jack said. “I choose (women first), because there’s been too many years that women didn’t choose women first.”

Legette-Jack was fired in 2012 from her head coaching position at Indiana University after a tw0-year losing streak. She acknowledged the event and highlighted the importance of failure in the learning process.

“Winning feels good, but losing is the time to learn,” she said. “It’s okay to fail, but it’s not okay to accept it.”

Legette-Jack also stressed the importance of celebrating wins. She joked with the crowd that she would do a cartwheel after her first win at SU.

When SU Director of Athletics John Wildhack hired Legette-Jack, he said she had earned the job title.

“I knew this was the time to be here,” she said. “This place is broken in women’s basketball, and I’ve never gotten a job somewhere it was (broken). It is what it is, but it takes what it takes.”

As she prepares for the upcoming basketball season, Legette-Jack said she doesn’t know what to expect, but that she plans to win.

“I’m a winner, and I don’t lose,” she said. “I’m going to win the game or we’re going to win the lesson.”

Following her speech, the audience had the opportunity to ask Legette-Jack questions. One member asked Legette-Jack what kind of impact she wants to have on making the women and girls of Syracuse feel more comfortable and represented in work spaces.

In her coaching meetings, Legette-Jack answered, she is often one of two women. Sometimes she’s the only woman.

“Welcome to my world,” she said. “But what our world is becoming is ‘Who’s the best for the job?’”

Published on October 6, 2022 at 12:25 am

Contact Sydney: srrothst@syr.edu