You want something done, ask a really busy person to do it.

Team president John Lashway has followed that old adage in choosing the first coach and general manager for the Hamilton Honey Badgers of the fledgling Canadian Elite Basketball League which begins play in May.

Lashway went outside the perceived box in hiring Chantal Vallée, who elevated the long-moribund University of Windsor women's program to five straight national titles.

"She thinks the way I think, she leads people the way I lead people," says Lashway, who spent 22 years as an executive in the NBA. "She's had a lot of success outside basketball. She'll challenge me."

Vallée's name was suggested to Lashway by Robin Brudner, who was an executive with Lashway at MLSE (owners of the Toronto Raptors, Maple Leafs, Argonauts and TFC) and is now the interim CEO of the Canadian Olympic Committee.

Vallée is on sabbatical from Windsor, researching and writing a major book on coaching success, based on worldwide interviews, and models from business, the military, education and health care. She's an expert and keynote speaker in Transformational Leadership and her CV includes being retained by more than three dozen companies as an adviser in various areas of business transformation and leadership functions.

She successfully coached high school and CGEP in Quebec been an assistant coach in the Canadian Development and Junior National teams, but really caught the sports attention when she took over the women's program at Windsor, where's she's on the teaching faculty, in 2005. The Lancers had no winning culture, finishing above .500 just four times in the previous 45 years.

By 2008-09, they had qualified for the national championships and in the spring of 2011, began a string of five straight Canadian championships, including a perfect 21-0 OUA record in 2012-13. She has twice been named U Sports Coach of the Year.

She'll be on a one-season contract in Hamilton — although that could be extended---and will return to coach Windsor when the Badgers' season ends in late August.

"That's why it's a great fit now, I'm not lecturing or coaching," Vallée told The Spectator. "Quite frankly, that's the reason I even considered it when John first called.

"I've had long discussions with John about the league salary cap, the rules, prospects and the recruiting. The thing I thought might be a major problem was the recruiting — in university you live and die with your recruiting--- but the league will do most of the recruiting. That's a big load off the shoulders of the general manager. I'm already starting to watch a lot of video on players from leagues in Europe."

Despite their frequent, lengthy discussions, about every aspect of basketball, it was a long time before Lashway and Vallée addressed what is certain to become an immediate major talking point in the outside community.

She is a woman and the players she will coach and manage are men.

"I understand the impact it will have," Vallee told The Spectator. "It's not something he mentioned to me or I mentioned to him. We talked systems and building a team from the ground up. It was weeks later John mentioned, 'You know, you might be the only female who's ever been the GM and coach of a men's pro team.'

"It was like a 10-second discussion, and then we went back to basketball.

"What I'm excited about is that people of both genders can be hired on the basis of their ability and their credentials. You can be hired based on your track record.

"Guys have been coaching females for generations and have been very successful. And females can coach males. I think that is the important message here."

Lashway echoed that sentiment: "It sends a message to young coaches, male and female, that people are selected on qualifications rather than gender."

The first woman to be head coach of a men's professional team was legend Nancy Lieberman who coached the Texas Legends in the NBA Developmental League in 2005.

Tamara Tatham, currently an assistant coach for the Raptors905 in the NBA D League, is the first Canadian woman to be a coach on a professional team in North America.

And Becky Hamman, an assistant coach to San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, is widely seen as being on the verge of becoming an NBA head coach.

But Lashway's research found no women had ever been coach and GM of a men's pro team, at any level.

"I'm just excited to have the chance to coach professionals," Vallée says. "I'm a good coach, and eventually it will not be something abnormal to have a woman coaching male professionals.

"Players want to be coached, they want to be pushed, they want to be respected, and they want to be helped to get better."

Steve Milton | November 21, 2018 | The Hamilton Spectator