SAN FRANCISCO — It was a relief to see Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase in the press room in Chicago in late August.
I’d spent the season uncomfortable with the fact that as a Sky beat reporter, I still couldn’t tell how good Tyler Marsh, the Sky's first-time coach who struggled through his first two seasons, really was.
Now, here was a coach everyone agreed was great.
Nakase has undeniably turned the Valkyries into something greater than the sum of their parts, leading them to the WNBA Finals in only their second year.
How did she do it? From afar, she gives the impression she’s outworking everyone — maybe because of the urgency with which she walks the sideline, or how frequently she uses the word “kill.”
But up close, she conveys a certain warmth, too. She’s the kind of person whose eyes light up when she sees a familiar member of the media, or when she’s asked about a bench player’s success, or when talking about her team’s commitment to playing with joy.
During the news conference at Wintrust Arena that August night, after the Sky had survived a huge Valkyries comeback for a 73-70 victory, she was asked about that joy — particularly how it showed up on the stat sheet. Was there something measurable about it? Nakase said no.
“There has to be some beauty in understanding that you’re gonna [sometimes] lose,” she said. “You can still have joy when you’re losing. Sports has to understand that’s gonna happen.”
It felt like she’d exposed a soft underbelly in her relentless competitive aura. I decided to look closer.
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From interviewing players and coaches around the WNBA this past week, the takeaway is that Nakase really is tough as nails, obsessive about giving it her all and getting her team to “empty the tank.” Her collapse from exhaustion during Game 3 of a quarterfinal series against the Wings on Oct. 2 was the most striking (and concerning) example. She said later she’d been so excited about game-planning that she’d forgotten to eat.
She got her work ethic, she says, from her dad. Gary Nakase held her to the highest standard, putting her in basketball leagues where she was the worst player so she’d have to sink or swim.
“He’s like: ‘Hey, now you suck. Good luck,’ ” she said with a laugh.
But I did a little reading and found out it goes back further than that. Gary got his work ethic from his father, Kenichi, who was relocated to a Japanese internment camp during World War II, and then had to start all over.
It got me thinking about how we inherit our approaches to hard work. My grandparents, Latvian refugees from the Soviet occupation, also had to start from scratch when they came to the United States. They instilled a strong work ethic in my mom, who passed it on to me.
Over time, though, I became more skeptical of the baby boomers and their “just push through” attitudes about work. I felt they weren’t in touch enough with their hearts or bodies to discern whether they were even working toward the right things. I was even skeptical of my peers and the hustle culture I saw all around me. Didn’t hustling so hard just release us from reckoning with our greed and cravings for prestige?
What about when the hustlers are really trying to help people? What about someone like Nakase, who’s working toward a more noble goal?
“Coaching is never about you,” she said when asked last week about her purpose. “It should never be about you. It’s all about pouring yourself into others and building their confidence, and building their weaknesses into strengths and making them also understand that it’s OK to have weaknesses.”
I had to learn that last lesson the hard way this season. Six months after Nakase, 46, got her dream job with the Valkyries, I got mine covering the WNBA. For the first time in my career, I’d be contributing to a greater purpose: deepening the conversation around women’s basketball, a game I had played and coached my entire life.
Suddenly I was grinding in the ways I’d always criticized. I discovered how easy it was to fall into it. You forget to eat because the 10-hour sessions don’t even feel like work. Because you’re in flow. Because in some ways, the work puts you at ease.
“Film is my therapy,” Nakase said after practice last Friday.
But as anyone who has been in real therapy knows, it’s actually tiring as hell. It takes a toll on your body. Eventually you run into the thing that tells you you need to stop.
For me, it was muscle tension that started causing sharp pains in the back of my head. Or, more accurately, it was concern from my parents about those pains that pushed me to slow down.
I realized that to make it through the season, I had to start taking more breaks — ironically, something my mom has encouraged me to do my whole life. I’d ignored it because I feared it would cause me to fall behind.
But I discovered that not only does pausing to take a break actually improve the quality of my writing — it also helps me remember that my own purpose isn’t static. On a given day, it might be just to breathe in and out. To experience the pleasure of an unhurried mind. To be available to answer the phone when a family member calls.
Sometimes I wonder if Nakase takes enough breaks to allow that kind of shift in purpose. I worry we’re the most at risk of burnout when we’re working on behalf of others, when we’re passing along virtues we learned from our parents.
So I was relieved to know that in the aftermath of Nakase’s collapse, she’s taking her family’s concerns seriously. Her sister is staying with her during the playoffs, leaving out little meals for her to eat on the go. She’s now wearing a heart monitor and reflecting on how her dad, before he passed away in 2021, told her to never let her career get in the way of her health.
It reminded me of my parents. The same people who taught me hard work are also trying to teach me about limits.
So before Game 1 of the Finals on Saturday, I asked Nakase what made her dad a cool person. The joy lit up her face.
“What made my dad a cool person was that he was there for me every single day,” she said. “His love language was basketball, it was discipline, and it was time.”
I was struck by the word “time” and realized I’ve never really allowed myself to feel that gratitude toward my parents — for being at every one of my games, for reading every one of my articles, for answering every one of my calls.
Sometimes it really does take a great coach to access a feeling so soft.
