56 Years, One Rule: Adapt or Die - Lin Dunn, Women's Hall of Fame Basketball Coach

Host Derin McMains introduces Lin Dunn as a women’s basketball pioneer whose career began in 1970, when she founded the entire women’s athletics program at Austin Peay. She later led Purdue to the 1994 Final Four, became the first head coach and general manager of the WNBA’s Seattle Storm in 2000, won the 2012 WNBA championship as head coach of the Indiana Fever, and entered the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014. Dunn now advises the Fever and works as an executive coaching consultant. McMains says the central lesson of the conversation is Dunn’s growth mindset. Her favorite saying is, “When you’re through learning, you’re through,” and she still applies it 56 years into her career. McMains connects that attitude to adapting to change: people who keep learning are curious enough to explore better ways rather than defending what is familiar. He also cites Ray Kroc’s “When you’re green, you grow, and when you’re ripe, you rot.” Dunn says she has survived and sustained success by adapting, adjusting, listening, and accepting that she does not have all the answers. She credits mentors including Bobby Knight, John Wooden, Hubie Brown, Bill Walsh, Pat Riley, Pat Summitt, and Margaret Wade. She studied books, clinics, film, and other coaches’ methods, sometimes “copying” or “stealing” what worked and figuring out how to make it work for her.

When McMains asks how she learned from famous coaches, Dunn explains that her mentors came through a mixture of personal relationships and deliberate observation. She spent two weeks with Hubie Brown at one of his Memphis camps while he was coaching the Grizzlies, giving her a direct, one-on-one learning experience. Bobby Knight was different: Dunn attended his clinics, read every book he wrote, and studied his teams on VHS, even when she was the only woman in the room. Dunn says John Wooden and Knight represented very different routes to success. She admired Knight’s militaristic style and incorporated some of it, but also valued Wooden’s supportive, “kind, loving” approach. She blended those influences while insisting that a leader must ultimately be herself. The lesson, she says, is that people do not need personal access to Steve Jobs or another famous figure to learn from them; books, clinics, film, and talks can provide mentorship from afar. She specifically recommends Wooden’s books, Knight’s books, Pat Summitt’s books, and Bill Walsh’s The Score Takes Care of Itself. Dunn distinguishes mentors from her “board of directors.” Mentors encourage and pat her on the back, while board members are truth-tellers who ask, “What are you doing?” and “Why did you do that?” She deliberately surrounds herself with people willing to question her rather than simply approve her ideas.

Dunn says she built her board of directors from several kinds of relationships: personal contacts, college coaching peers, people she knew from a distance, and former assistants. One of her most trusted advisers is a retired former assistant. When Dunn faces a decision, this person first asks why she wants to do it, then asks how she plans to do it. Dunn values someone who quizzes, tests, and challenges her instead of offering automatic agreement. She says her best coaching staffs worked the same way. If Dunn proposed trapping a two-player game, an assistant might respectfully ask how the tactic fit the team’s system or whether there was time to install it. Dunn might initially insist, “We’re going to trap,” but the assistant could return to the issue privately the next day and make her think through the reasoning. Sometimes Dunn changed her mind. Her principle is that if you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room; smart colleagues should make you better rather than requiring you to be the only source of answers. Her clearest example involves a professional player during a tense playoff game. Dunn believed a hard hedge on the two-player game would disrupt the opponent. During a timeout, a veteran player told her the hard hedge was not working and recommended switching to icing at the top and the side. Dunn asked whether she was sure, then trusted her and changed the defense. Dunn believes they would have lost had they stayed with the hard hedge. For corporate leaders, she says, the equivalent is listening seriously to ideas from people lower in the hierarchy, even when those people do not have formal authority.

Dunn began her career as a head coach at Austin Peay, but one of her most important role changes came when she became an assistant with USA Basketball. She worked with the FIBA/World Cup team and the 1992 Olympic team, and for several years was no longer the person in charge or the final decision-maker. That experience taught her what an assistant’s job really is: make the head coach’s job easier, fill whatever role is needed, work hard, offer suggestions, and remain available. She also learned that assistants can build relationships with players who may not feel comfortable approaching the head coach. That lesson became important when she later joined the Indiana Fever as an assistant. Dunn says she is naturally a servant leader and does not need to be in charge; she prefers “we” to “me.” Her time as an assistant helped her flourish in a limited role and made her more aware of how relationships motivate people. McMains asks whether she maintained those relationships after becoming a head coach, when media duties, donors, front-office responsibilities, and game preparation competed for her time. Dunn admits that early in her career she did not invest enough in relationships. Influenced by Knight’s “my way or the highway” style, she initially prioritized control over connection. Later, especially with Seattle and Indiana, she learned to delegate paperwork and focus on what she calls “the people work.” Delegating also gave her assistants opportunities to grow into future head coaches. Her phrasing is: “Delegate the paperwork. You do the people work.”

Dunn’s transition into general management was supported by Kelly Krauskopf, whom she describes as both a mentor and role model while Dunn coached the Fever. Krauskopf included Dunn in player-personnel decisions, trades, drafts, and the evaluation of college talent. After retiring from coaching and starting a consulting company focused on coaching coaches, Dunn returned to the Fever as interim general manager and eventually became the general manager. The role required a different kind of adaptation. Instead of choosing a play or influencing a game during a timeout, Dunn had to hire and fire people, fill organizational positions, and decide who would lead medical and other departments. She compared the job to being a CEO and emphasized that personnel decisions affect many people, so leaders must do their homework, research carefully, and understand the weight of the role. She leaned on other general managers and the Pacers organization to keep learning. Dunn says she is especially suited to rebuilding. She sees some leaders as “sustainers,” who take over something already strong, while she thrives as a “builder,” taking a program at the bottom and creating a vision and plan to move it upward. A rebuilding leader must make the plan believable, achievable, and measurable, then motivate everyone to join it. Dunn enjoyed the general manager role because it turned decisions about players, drafts, trades, and organizational direction into a long-term chess game. She also had to resist managing the head coach as though she were still the coach herself. With an experienced coach, Dunn could step back; with a first-time head coach, she provided more nurturing while trying not to become bossy. Still, when the organization drafted a player first overall and that player was not receiving minutes, Dunn had to ask the coach why and insist on discussing how the player would be developed. Adaptability meant changing her level of involvement to fit the person and situation.

McMains asks how leaders can tell whether someone resisting change is afraid, confused, or simply unwilling. Dunn says leaders should first identify the cause: fear, ego, lack of context, stubbornness, or a genuinely closed mindset. People at the top may have been told for years how good they are and can find it difficult to admit, “I’m not sure” or “I don’t know.” Others insist on doing things the way they have always been done. Dunn recommends opening a conversation through specific improvement questions. If a team’s defense ranks 12th out of 14, for example, she would ask how it can improve and discuss concrete ways to get better. Sometimes a leader can “get in a little door” by helping a resistant person understand the goal and the steps. But Dunn acknowledges that some people remain closed, and a leader may eventually have to say no, let the person go, and move on. She calls that one of the hardest responsibilities for someone who values relationships and sees a person’s potential. She similarly advises leaders to listen and educate before making a final decision, but not to postpone decisions indefinitely because they dislike disappointing people. Great leaders can involve others so thoroughly that people feel the decision was partly their own, but the CEO, head coach, or general manager still has to decide. “There’s something powerful about saying no,” Dunn says. Leaders are paid to make the tough call after listening, researching, and consulting their board of truth-tellers. If someone dislikes that responsibility, they may be on the right bus but in the wrong seat.

Before the final question, McMains asks what Dunn looks for in a first-round draft pick beyond visible skill. Dunn’s first answer is fit: whether the player belongs in the organization’s culture and core-value system and can help create sustained success. That requires knowing the team’s identity, how it wants to play, and what kind of person it wants representing the organization. She also evaluates athleticism, work ethic, and character, asking whether the player fits the identity of the Indiana Fever immediately and over the long term. A first-round pick is effectively a 15-year decision, she says, and a bad choice can cost a general manager the job and leave the organization mediocre. She compares the process to hiring executives in the corporate world: leaders must know what culture and identity they are building before they can judge whether a candidate fits. Dunn cites Tamika Catchings as an example. Kelly Krauskopf selected Catchings first overall out of Tennessee around 2002 even though Catchings was returning from an ACL injury. Krauskopf projected that Catchings would eventually lead the team to a championship, and she did. Dunn presents the selection as evidence that fit, character, and long-term projection can matter more than an immediate concern visible on film. McMains then connects Dunn’s working style to the podcast’s “No Show Dogs” idea: doing the work rather than trying to look impressive. He quotes Dolly Parton describing herself as “a workhorse that looks like a show horse,” and notes her music, businesses, films, and Imagination Library, which the host says has given more than 300 million books to children worldwide. Dunn calls Parton the epitome of giving back and a true servant leader.

Asked what she was willing to do that others might not, Dunn says she repeatedly accepted difficult jobs, especially opportunities to rebuild teams at the bottom. She points back to her first role at Austin Peay in 1970, where she coached volleyball, basketball, and tennis, taught eight physical-education classes, sponsored cheerleaders, and drove them to men’s basketball and football events. She says doing everything helped justify a woman being a coach and a woman being involved in sports at that time. Dunn attributes her persistence to resilience and a competitive family background. As the firstborn and first grandchild, she faced high expectations, but she learned to bounce back, learn from failure, and continue. She describes her career as a blessing even though it was difficult, and closes with the saying, “Tough times never last, but tough people do.” In the closing exchange, Dunn says she remains low-tech and does not have a personal website. She is on Facebook and Twitter/X to promote the Fever, works with The Daily Coach and its Daily Network, and helps with its YouTube show. McMains says the show will link to The Daily Coach. The episode ends with a prompt to visit No Show Dogs’ Instagram for Dunn’s “three and out” answers: the biggest culture killer, the difference between good and great leaders, and what she wishes she had known at 30. The host also asks listeners to share the episode with their teams, use it for discussion, and leave a five-star rating.