This story appears in SLAM 263. Get your copy here.

Shaw University knows a thing or two about firsts, going back to 1865 when it became the first historically Black institution of higher learning in the South. So it lands as a strange kind of poetry that it took until now for a woman to be named head coach of the women’s basketball program. Ebony Tanner is that woman.

Tanner is Shaw-grown, having spent four seasons on this same bench as the program’s top assistant, helping engineer the Lady Bears’ 2008 CIAA championship run. She already knows what these banners smell like and, more importantly, what it’ll take to raise another. She’s also someone who’s actually walked the walk of the young women she’ll be leading.

As a hooper at the University of Richmond, she was a two-time All-Atlantic 10 selection. By the time her collegiate career was over, her name sat near the top of Richmond’s record books in rebounds, blocks, field-goal percentage and points—a true two-way player before two-way was a buzzword. 

Today, Tanner carries home more than 20 years of playing and coaching experience, fresh off two seasons steering Elizabeth City State and leaving that program in better shape than when she arrived. There’s one thing we know for sure: her teams always have a suffocating defense, ranking among the nation’s leaders in forcing turnovers, turning games into track meets for an exciting brand of hoop.

Shaw’s history runs deep, and its future has just inherited a coach already woven into the story. And, at last, a first that should’ve arrived a long time ago.