The decade-and-a-half of Chantelle Handy’s life when she was a professional basketball player were, she’s starting to realise, the easy bit.
She may just be in the fledgling stages of her coaching career but already, it’s dawning on the 37-year-old that the coming years are likely to be far more challenging than anything she encountered as a player.
Handy has been appointed permanent head coach of Caledonia Gladiators’ women’s team, which was the logical next step given she spent the closing stages of last season as the team’s interim head coach.
As a player, Handy has a wealth of experience under her belt – with 142 caps, she’s GB’s second most-capped female player, she’s an Olympian, a Commonwealth Games medallist with England and played professionally in Europe for 12 years – but as a coach, Handy is a rookie.
She’s just weeks into her role as Gladiators’ permanent head coach but already, the demands of the job, and the differences from her playing days, are become apparent.
“As a player, you’re told what to do, you just look after yourself and you’re pretty selfish. Whereas a coach, you’ve got 12 players to manage, plus management to manage and so it’s constant. Whatever’s happening, you constantly have to be coming up with solutions," the Englishwoman says.
“When you’re a coach, you're never able to turn off and it’s your whole life, even more so than as a player.
"As a player, it’s easier to switch off but as a coach, you literally don’t get a day off because you have so much responsibility. I have to come up with everything that’ll help the players be successful and that’s draining, but it’s worth it when you see your team perform well.”
Handy has been thrown in at the deep-end in terms expectations for the coming season.
For the past two seasons, Gladiators’ women’s side has finished second in the WBBL and with the domestic league having been renamed Super League Basketball, Handy has aspirations to go one better sooner rather than later, with a strong showing in Europe also a target.
Given the investment by some of Gladiators' rival clubs in recent seasons, however, and the strength of defending champions, London Lions, Handy is under no illusions as to how challenging it will be for her to guide her side to a first domestic league title.
“Having finished second in the league in the past two seasons, our goal now is obviously to get a championship at some point," she says.
"We understand that’s not going to be easy because the league will be a lot more competitive this year because a lot of teams have invested a lot of money. So our goal is to get a championship but whether that’ll be this year, next year or further in the future we don’t know, but that’s absolutely the target.”
Gladiators have already strengthened their squad ahead of their league-opener against Newcastle Eagles on the 29th of September, most notably with the signing of Essex Rebel guard Katharine Tudor, who was in the WBBL Team of the Year, and re-signing former club star Téa Adams from Valur Reykjavik in Iceland.
And, with this being Handy’s first chance to put her stamp on the team, she’s clear about how she wants her side to play over the coming weeks and months.
“For us, it’s about trying to do everything for 40 minutes - that’s a huge ask but we need to be as consistent as possible," she says.
“We’re a very aggressive, defensive team. We pick up full court and we don’t make anything easy for the other team. It’s about having players buy into the mindset of the club. Players want to get up the court and score but when you’re playing at a very high level, you can’t just play on one end of the floor - we need to be able to play a style of defence that will allow us to be successful in Europe as well as at home.”
As a player, Handy was renowned for her passion on the court and she’s clear that as head coach, there’s little chance she’ll eliminate that personality trait.
And if both she and her players can find the right balance of passion and control over the coming months, she’s justifiably optimistic as to the results that could come Gladiators’ way.
“The one word I want to be able to describe our season as is “success”. By that, I don’t mean winning every single game but success to me would mean we've kept our culture, we've kept our style of play and have advanced from the year before.
"We all want to win but for me, the priority is to keep developing," she says.
"As a player, I was very passionate and that comes through when I’m coaching too. In games, there’ll be situations where the players are going to be yelled at but sometimes you have to do that as a coach.
"Ultimately, I want my players to be happy and trust me and I want them to know I trust them and if we can get that right, the sky’s the limit."
