More than two years after her barrier-breaking hire as the first full-time female assistant coach in NBA history, Becky Hammon is still grinding away with the San Antonio Spurs. No flash in the pan or gimmick hire, the 39-year-old Hammon is still standing shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Ime Udoka, Ettore Messina and Chip Engelland, still working as as part of the legendary Gregg Popovich’s staff to help push the squad to the second-best record in the NBA in pursuit of another championship.

Mike Francesa does not think that she, or any other woman, has any chance of ever becoming the head coach or manager of a men’s professional sports team.

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The longtime afternoon host on New York radio station WFAN fielded a seemingly innocuous question on Wednesday from a caller who said his daughter loves sports with all her heart, and who wanted to hear Francesa’s take on whether a woman could ever be the head coach of a men’s pro sports club.

Francesa obliged. His take was that the idea is so ludicrous as to be impossible to comprehend.

It was not a great take.

Mike Francesa with an unfathomable display of sexism. Women shouldn't be anywhere near men's sports! (Except for cheerleaders, presumably.) pic.twitter.com/2n2plZMLIF — Funhouse (@SportsFunhouse) March 2, 2017





“It’s a gender situation,” Francesa adroitly explained. “They don’t play — they’re not players. They don’t have any way to be in the league.”

For one thing, this is demonstrably untrue. Of the 30 coaches currently leading NBA teams, 17 did not play professionally at the NBA or ABA level. Many played at the college level or in other professional leagues, though … like Hammon, who’s one of the greatest and most decorated players in the history of women’s basketball. She has a way to be in the NBA, because she is currently in the NBA.

“What would qualify her to be a coach, on a professional level, of a men’s team?” Francesa asked.

We’ll let Popovich — one of seven coaches with more than 1,100 NBA wins to his credit, one of five in league history to win five or more NBA championships, one of three ever to win NBA Coach of the Year three times — field that one:

I hired her because she was in my coaches’ meetings for a whole year because she was injured, and she’s got opinions and solid notions about basketball. Obviously, she was a great player, and as a point guard, she’s a leader, she’s fiery, she’s got high intelligence and our guys just respected the heck out of her. She’s out on the court, she’s coaching with us, she’s running drills. […]

I don’t even look at her as, ‘Well, she’s the first female this or that or the other.’ She’s a coach, and she’s good at it.

That was Pop, in July of 2015, explaining why he and the Spurs tapped Hammon to run their entrant into that year’s 2015 Las Vegas Summer League tournament. The Spurs won that tournament. She coached the Summer League squad again this past summer.

After the caller asked whether Francesa believed longtime New York radio color commentator Suzyn Waldman could manage the New York Yankees, the host doubled down on his insistence.

“No!” he said. “She’s not a coach, though, and was never a player. She’s a broadcaster, that’s fine, but you know what? You have to have been in the game if you’re going to be a coach. In any sport, you’re going to have to — you’re not going to start off as the head coach or a manager.”

I repeat: Becky Hammon is one of the greatest and most decorated players in the history of women’s basketball; she is presently in the game; and she is starting off as an assistant coach, just like countless other assistants-turned-head coaches have before her.

We continue:

Caller: I’d like to, someday, in my lifetime, see a female coach. I think that —

Francesa: Why?

Caller: I just think that it would be something that would be great to see one day.

Francesa: But why? I’m asking you why. What would make that person qualified?

I repeat: Becky Hammon is a decorated college and pro player whose mind for the game, contributions in coaches’ meetings and manner with Spurs players led San Antonio’s chief decision-makers, Popovich and general manager R.C. Buford, to give her a shot at Summer League. Her team not only won the whole thing, but, in the words of Buford, “We got better over the week.”

Story continues