Getting to know Hawkeyes assistant coach LaSondra Barrett

Hawkeye Headquarters intern Ryan Paris sat down with LaSondra Barrett for a Q&A session.

Ryan Paris: How’d you first get into playing basketball?

LaSondra Barrett: My dad was a referee. So I would go to a lot of his games with him and sit in the stands and watch it. Also, he put the ball in my hand and my sister’s hand and we’d do drills in the driveway. We’d do figure eights up and down the street. I would play with the neighborhood boys. My sister ended up not playing, she was like “I’m done with it,” so it would just be me. But my dad was monumental in putting the basketball in my hand. Him and my mom were really good at forking out the bill to travel and play AAU and all those things. I would credit him and my mom.

Ryan: What kept you motivated to keep playing through high school, college, and pro?

LaSondra: I just loved it. You have to really, really love it. And I think people say that but I was that kid that had the basketball posters everywhere. I had a basketball lamp, my bedspread was basketball, I wanted to be the best at it. I wanted to be the best at my school, in my state, and the nation. And I think that’s what drove me to have the competitive drive of just “get better and don’t settle.” I had a true love for the game and still do.

Ryan: What was your favorite WNBA or NBA team when you were growing up?

LaSondra: WNBA team was the Houston Comets. I was a big Houston Comets fan. NBA, I kinda went back and forth. I was a Lakers fan to start, then I kinda moved to the Warriors as of the last decade.

Ryan: Did you have a favorite player?

LaSondra: Shaquille O’Neal, as crazy as it was. I was a huge Shaq fan. I used to love everything about him dunking. He was an LSU guy, all those things.

Ryan: What made you want to get into coaching?

LaSondra: I was that one player that said I would never coach. I would say it all the time so I’m eating my words. I remember being in Australia playing and finishing up my season and my coach at the time was Nikki Fargas who’s the [Las Vegas] Aces president, and she called and she’s like “Hey, would you want to come back and get into player development? You can train, you can do all these things.” At the time my Mom was getting sick so I was like “Yea, sure, I’ll try it out.” So I go and I’m still working out, I’m still practicing with the team, but I started having more of a hand in some of our players, like having to mentor them a little bit and take them places, and I think that’s what drove me to it. To be able to see a player who maybe has some shortcomings and has some [drawbacks] in terms of them personally. I was able to connect with a couple of those players on the team. That was the biggest thing for me, paying it forward with advice from my experience.

Ryan: Did you have any big mentors on your journey to becoming a coach?

LaSondra: Oh yeah, Mickie DeMoss is a big one. She worked with Pat Summitt for years, and I was fortunate to work with her and I still can call her to this day. Nell Fortner is huge for me. She recruited me out of high school when she was at Auburn, and somehow life circled us back together. She hired me at Georgia Tech and she’s been great. Tasha Butts, who passed away, was very monumental. She played at Tennessee and played in the [WNBA]. So I’ve had a lot of really good mentors along the way.

Ryan: What made you go from Georgia Tech to Iowa City?

LaSondra: Nell Fortner retired, and I was a free agent waiting to see what was next. I was being patient and Jan Jensen just kept calling the phone. And I was like, “Man, this lady is persistent!” We had a couple of conversations that went really well, and then I still was like, “I don’t know, it’s kinda far,” and she’s just like, “Let’s just get you up here, you can meet everybody.” So I was able to meet the team, meet some of the coaches. We hung out, we went to 30Hop as our first place to eat, and then we went to Chop House. I was like, “Okay, food is good.” If you get food and good fellowship, it’s awesome. I think we aligned in so many ways even though her being older, I’m younger. I’m black, she’s white. Even in how we grew up, we had so many similarities which was interesting. I remember talking to her more from a personal standpoint than basketball. And that’s really big for somebody that you’re working for, that you’re moving and uprooting your life to move to a new region for. Everybody was so welcoming. I was actually shocked at how nice everyone was. But the “Iowa Nice” thing, I learned very quickly that people just are nice. That made me feel really good and safe.

Ryan: Is there an example of the “Iowa Nice” that sticks out to you?

LaSondra: I have a neighbor, his nickname is Cowboy. So shoutout to Cowboy. I had no furniture, no pots, I had just moved into my home, and he brought food over every single day. At first I thought it was weird because he’s like, “Hey, I got you some food,” and the way he delivered it was just like, “Here you go,” and then he’d leave, or he’d send his daughter to bring cookies. After a while I was like, “Man, he’s just a nice guy.” I think he cooks for a living in competitions. As the year went on, I would be walking out of my door and he’s putting salt on the driveway and he’ll say, “Hey, if you see someone on your roof, it’s me. I’m putting up Christmas lights.” And I’m just in the house like, “Okay, sure!” I had a lot of stories with him. He’s good about when I go out of town, he looks after the house. That right there, you don’t get a lot of that in Atlanta or too many places. I’ve gotten that niceness from everyone.

Ryan: What’s been your favorite part of living in Iowa City so far?

LaSondra: The sweet corn. Oh my gosh. I’m a griller, I like to cook. We were grilling sweet corn I remember last fall and we couldn’t even get it into the house. We’d just take it off the grill and we were tearing it up. We were in [Carver-Hawkeye Arena] one day and I think someone dropped off a bag of sweet corn, like where are you getting that at? We were crawling in the bag trying to get it and I was the main one. I had like a whole satchel of sweet corn. So I cannot wait for the corn this summer.

Ryan: You sound like a native Iowan.

LaSondra: Oh yeah. What’s it? Knee high by July? Is that the slogan? It’s some slogan that they were telling me that the corn has to be knee high by July. So I do know that. So I’m turning into an Iowan for sure.

Ryan: Any superstitions or good luck charms you do before games?

LaSondra: I try to do my hair the same way, I do the same socks. I wash them. Same socks and pants. We do popcorn. So everywhere we go, even here, we go get the popcorn. But when we travel away, it’s about four of us, and we get the popcorn at the venue and we eat it and we rate it. So of everywhere we’ve been now, Nebraska I think won it but Maryland was pretty good. So we have a running tally. I would say that’s our pregame ritual. We test and rate the popcorn.

Ryan: Is it like drastically different?

LaSondra: No, it’s not drastic. If we had to vote ourselves, we’d be number one. But we have to take ourselves out. Nebraska was surprisingly pretty good and I don’t even want to say that on record.

Ryan: Do you have any favorite hobbies outside of basketball?

LaSondra: On a regular day I like to garden, so I spend a lot of time gardening or going to a farmer’s market. I do puzzles. I know that sounds so cheesy, but I can put on some music and do a 1,000-piece puzzle and that’s my happy place. The job gets so crazy, sometimes a mellow hobby kinda fits me. So I think those are my two go-tos.

Ryan: If you were not in basketball right now, what would you be doing?

LaSondra: Something in culinary, maybe own my own restaurant or food truck. I think that’s pretty cool. That rush of making food is still kind of competitive.

Ryan: What kind of food would you serve?

LaSondra: I would do some kind of barbeque. Yeah, barbeque would be good. That’s how me and Ava [Heiden] connected. We’re always doing our recipes. We should do a cooking show. Ava needs her own. “Cooking with Ava.”

Ryan: Anything else you want to add?

LaSondra: We just want to thank the fans, the community support drives it, and it helps me so much in recruiting. Keep showing up, the players are working their butts off to just be back at that level.

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