Dallas Mavericks Hire NBA’s First Pregnant Coach — and This is No PR Stunt: How Jenny Boucek More Than Earned Her Way Into League

Women are breaking the glass ceiling in many industries, but Jenny Boucek is shattering tempered-glass backboards as the NBA’s first pregnant coach and soon-to-be single mother.

The Dallas Mavericks have brought Boucek on as an assistant coach, making her the first woman to hold any coaching position in the franchise’s 38-year history. But, she is certainly no stranger to the courts with her slam dunk resume.

The basketball dynamo played for the Cleveland Rockers in the WNBA’s inaugural season in 1997 and retired in 1998 after a career-ending back injury. For more than a decade, she coached several WNBA teams, which included a championship season with the Seattle Storm (where she was named head coach in 2015).

In 2017, she made the switch from WNBA to NBA. Serving as an assistant coach for the Sacramento Kings, Boucek became one of a handful of female coaches in NBA history.

Boucek joined the ranks of Becky Hammon full-time assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs (2014 to now), Lisa Boyer volunteer assistant coach for the Cleveland Cavaliers (2001 to 2002), Nancy Lieberman assistant coach for the Sacramento Kings (2015 to now) and Natalie Nakase assistant coach of Los Angeles Clippers (2018 to now).

NBA superstar LeBron James and Dallas head coach Rick Carlisle both hope to see more women in the NBA. Carlisle and Boucek seem to have a special friendship. Both are products of the University of Virginia, where she led the Cavaliers to not one, but four regular season ACC Championships and three NCAA Elite Eight runs.

She even spent the 2014 training camp working with Carlisle’s staff. During that camp, Carlisle said he wouldn’t hesitate to hire her if an appropriate spot on his staff became available.

This summer, that position opened up.

She interviewed with Carlisle and Mark Cuban, the Mavs owner and Shark Tank star, the afternoon of the NBA Draft and landed the job assistant to the basketball staff/special projects, a non-traveling coaching position, which was a request by Boucek.

Why must it be a non-traveling position, you may ask? Because Boucek is due to give birth any day now. And we really mean any day now.

Boucek’s Basketball Baby Bump Journey

Boucek, who is now 44, was nervous that starting a family on her own would cost her an NBA future. The shot clock was running out. She always prioritized career over personal life, which led her to freeze her eggs in 2010.

“It was supposed to be Plan B,” Boucek tells SportsDay. “It was to be used with a partner at an appropriate time. It was to buy me some time to find that relationship. But the years kept going by. Career opportunities kept coming.

“It took a toll on my personal life. I never found a person to do this with.”

In March 2017, Boucek became pregnant with her current eggs through extraction procedures, but it resulted in a miscarriage. Her determination on the court translated to her perseverance to start a family.

She tried again in October 2017 with her younger, frozen eggs. That same October, the Kings hired her as an assistant coach. Talk about a real-life double team.

Several of her eggs fertilized and the doctors implanted three. She ended up with a bun in the oven with a due date of approximately “midsummer.” Her mother, Barbara, is moving from Nashville to live with Boucek in Downtown Dallas and help the soon-to-be mother.

We hope she considers baby names like Maverick or Dirk or MavsWoman. Just suggestions.

Skeptics Charge It’s A PR Stunt

During the end of last season, Jenny Boucek was fully showing and still with the Kings. They were prepared to bring her back, but Dallas and a third team expressed interest in her — even with her request to not travel for six months after giving birth. All the teams remained interested, but the Mavs won her heart.

More and more women are entering the NBA landscape, from the small but growing list of female coaches, to the increasing amount of female officials.

In fact, the NBA was the first professional sports league to employ female officials in 1997. Women made up two-thirds of the referees for any given game during the NBA Summer League this July. Let’s hope this pivots into the league because it’s about time.

The #MeToo movement is ever-present in the NBA — especially with the Dallas Mavericks’ well-publicized scandal. Boucek was aware of the ongoing sexual harassment investigation lurking in the business side of the franchise.

But after her visits and interactions with the Mavs at training camp and over the years, Boucek says she always felt “nothing but respect from everybody.”

Some see hiring this female pregnant coach as a publicity stunt or public relations move by the franchise. Boucek reminds those who believe that she had other NBA options anyways, and she is confident that Carlisle, a friend of hers for many years, would not do that.

“I consider her one of the brightest minds in our game and welcome her to Dallas,” Carlisle tells SportsDay.

Carlisle welcomes six new staff members behind the bench with Boucek, as well as another new assistant coach Stephen Silas. Oh, and how could we forget about the Mavs’ new 19-year-old Slovenian guard Luka Doncic, who is already the favorite to win Rookie of the Year?

We know that Boucek and the other new members of the Mavs will get a huge Texas welcome. Who could blame them if — err when — they fall in love with The Big D and its southern hospitality?

As Jenny Boucek nurtures her newborn baby this NBA season, she will also work to help coach the Mavs back to relevance after last year’s 24-58 plunge. Sometimes all it takes is a mother’s touch.