As the college basketball and NBA seasons ramp up, the WNBA season has just wrapped up. And one team has an SDSU connection. Former SDSU women’s basketball star Megan Vogel is an assistant coach for the Phoenix Mercury. The Mercury played in the WNBA finals, where they lost to the Las Vegas Aces 4-0. Vogel had an outstanding career at South Dakota State, currently sitting fourth all-time for the most points scored with 1850 points. Vogel was a Jackrabbit from 2003-2007. After she completed her four years at SDSU, she was drafted in the second round, 19th overall, in the 2007 WNBA draft by the Washington Mystics. Vogel’s WNBA career didn’t start out like she wanted, as she didn’t make the team. But now, 18 years later, Vogel has found her place as an assistant coach in the WNBA. The Collegian got the chance to sit down and talk with Vogel about the WNBA and the influence SDSU has had on her career. Q: How did your experience at SDSU prepare you for the job at the top of the sport? A: You know, my time at South Dakota State was probably the most influential time in my career. It just shaped who I became as a coach. The base and the foundation were laid there. Coach Johnson did such a good job of really teaching me how to pursue something. You know, at that time I was trying to play in the league and what it would take to get to this level, but all those lessons learned in that process helped me when I got here as a coach. Q: Have you been able to take anything that you learned from AJ and add it to your coaching style? A: Yeah, I think every place that you go, you take things from different places, and whether it’s X’s and O’s, whether it’s leadership, whether it’s how you connect to players, I think that’s the biggest thing that I’ve learned at every place that I’ve gone is ultimately the most important thing that we do as coaches is connect with our players and develop trust and work on those relationships, and it allows you to really coach them in a way to be successful. And you know, AJ was so intentional with how he connected with all of us as players and developed us into more than just basketball players. So I think that’s probably the biggest thing that I took from my time there for sure. Q: What steps did you take to get the job now, from the time you were at SDSU playing? A: I don’t know if there’s any one path to get to this level. I think the best piece of advice I ever got was to be where your feet are and just work extremely hard, not looking at what’s next, what’s on the horizon, and where you want to get to. Every job that I had kind of led me to the next one. You know, my time at South Dakota State allowed me to play professionally, which allowed me to get some connections. And then my time at Mankato introduced me to the coach at St Cloud, which then got me into being at Green Bay for 12 years and all of those experiences combined, when this opportunity presented itself, made me feel prepared to take it on for sure. Q: Obviously, you were a great player. What do you find translates well from being a player into coaching? A: Yeah, I think just being able to relate to the players, and in every circumstance, understand what they’re going through, understand how they’re feeling, you know, for me, especially at this level. I was one of those players who was trying to make a team, so I really feel like I have a good ability to relate to some of our players, during training camp, who are just fighting to make our roster. And then on the flip side, like I can also relate to some of our better players on our team that you know have to carry a load and what that feels like, because that’s kind of what my role was when I was at South Dakota State. So, ultimately, every experience as a player or as a coach or wherever you’ve been obviously shapes you. But I think just again, the relationship piece of just like I don’t care if you’re a player or coach, the most important thing that you do is earn the trust of everybody around you and that’s how you get people to where they want to go, Q: There’ve been a few SDSU players who have been drafted, but no one has ever really stuck for very long. What do you think it’ll take for someone to stick around in the league? A: Yeah, just honestly, it’s finding the right team and the right fit at the right time. Could Maya have made it? Definitely. Could Macy have made it? Definitely. Could I have possibly made it? Definitely. I just don’t know that we all found the right team at the right time. I mean, you look at our team this year, the rookies on our team, like Catherine Westfield, got cut from a couple of teams. Lexi had been cut from a couple of teams. I mean, they were 29-year-old rookies and just put in their time. So, you know, I think it’s, it’s twofold. You have to have the talent. There’s more talent now than there ever has been, but I think it also is, you’ve got to find the right team that fits you and your style and has a need at your position, because ultimately, roster sizes are still incredibly small. And there are more teams in the league now than ever, which I think will make those opportunities more available. I think probably now more than ever, even when I was getting drafted, or Macy or Maya just having expansion teams, those opportunities are great for players, you know, like us, that maybe aren’t the tip top of the league, but we’re talented enough to land on a team. We just need an opportunity. And I think the more that the league grows and the more opportunities that there are available, I think eventually you’re going to see someone from South Dakota State on a roster. Q: If you’re familiar with Brooklyn Meyer, what do you think of her game? A: I mean, obviously, I watch a lot of South Dakota State games and love cheering on the Jacks. And she’s a special one, for sure. There’s been a lot of really special players over the years, but she’s fun to watch, she’s physical and can really score around the rim and rebound the ball, and I hope she has a great year. Q: And then do you ever get to go in and play at all in practice or anything and compete? A: Oh gosh, well, when we first got hired, our training camp was actually in San Diego, so we didn’t bring practice guys out to San Diego. So our coaches were the practice guys for training camp. So that was an alarming experience, to say the least, for someone who is 39 and hasn’t played basketball in a little while. But yeah, I mean, you know, all of us have players that we train every single day, and you’ve got to get out there and get on the floor and build sweat equity with those players, whether that’s being on offense so they can defend something, whether that’s being on defense so they can get a read. Do I go up and down and play five on five anymore? Not in the least, my friend, not in the least. I would like to have no more surgeries. I would like to keep my Achilles. I would like to not pull a hamstring. But no, you still have to be able to get out there and play and demonstrate and do something so a little bit, but not to the extent that you’re thinking, Q: Who’s the best WNBA player you’ve ever seen, either played against, coached or just seen? A: There’s so many good ones, it’s hard, because I have my favorites that I grew up watching, Like obviously I was the same age as Diana, so when she was in college, I was in college, and just seeing how good she was, and then being able to come here and be a part of the coaching staff on a team that she was on, and just seeing what the very tip of the spear looks Like, and why she has elevated herself to be in a category by herself. Was really awesome to see. So she would be one of them, for sure, you know, Sue Bird has always been one of my favorite players of all time, just how she leads, how she carries herself, how she plays the longevity of her career and then you get, you kind of get to this level, and you hear people that have maybe played with her, had experiences with her, and they all say the same thing of just how great she was as a teammate. So I would say those two players are probably two of my favorite players of all time, for sure. Q: What is the most challenging part of coaching? A: The most challenging part of coaching is you don’t have the ball in your hands. And that I learned really early on in my career. I think it was one of the things that I probably struggled with when I first got into coaching, because I was a person, especially at the places that I was, that I was a person that had the ball, I had the ability to affect the game. I had that pressure on my shoulders, and as a coach, you can study all the film, you can put them in the right places, but ultimately, you can’t go out and get a stop, and you can’t go out and score a basket. So it’s just different. It’s a different feeling of how you prepare, how you handle wins, how you handle losses, all of those things. But I think the hardest part is just not having the ball in your hands as a former player for sure. Q: What does it feel like being able to represent a smaller school like SDSU on such a big stage? A: You know, I don’t know if I ever really think about that on the day-to-day, but I absolutely love South Dakota State, and it is very much in the fiber of who I am every single day. And you know, just coming from where I am coming from, I’m extremely grateful that I had the opportunities that I did at South Dakota State, but it just makes me so proud to tell people that I’m a Jackrabbit Q: Do you aspire to be a head coach one day? A: Someday? Yeah, I mean, like I said, I’ve never been someone who has looked at what comes next. I’ve just tried to be the best at where I am at this day, and that was when I was a player, too. And right now, that means that I want to be the very best assistant that I can be for Coach Tibbetts and our staff, and knowing that, eventually, someday, I would love that opportunity, but it’s not something that I’m just pressing and running towards. You know, I really love what I do. I love what I’m in charge of, I love what I get to do every single day, and I love who I work with. So for me, it’s not a rush, but it’s definitely something that hopefully someday I get a chance to do. Q: What is it like coaching with someone who has a South Dakota connection, like you? A: You mean, what is it like coaching with a Coyote? Yeah, you know, we actually have some good back and forth. You know, the biggest thing is that we both have Midwestern values. We care about people. We treat people how we want to be treated. You know, one of the best things about working with Nate is how intentional he is with his leadership and how he forms relationships with everybody, whether you’re on the staff, whether you’re a player, whether you work in the facility, it doesn’t matter. He is just so intentional with that relationship piece. And honestly, I feel like that’s the Midwestern in all of us, is that we just we want to get to know who we work with. We want to be a part of their lives. We care about them as people, and we know that we’re doing this together. So it’s fun to have the South Dakota ties, you know, especially like in the finals, there was Becky (Hammon) and him from South Dakota, which was pretty cool, especially for how small as far as population goes, the state is, but it’s a unique thing that kind of brought us together. And I’m so happy that it did. Q: The Finals didn’t go exactly how you wanted, but what was that experience like, and how can that help you and the team going forward? A: Yeah, you know, I’ll be honest, going to the Finals was an incredible experience. It was a little bit of a blur because it was like the regular season was jam-packed with 44 games, and then all of a sudden, we were in our first-round match with New York. We lost game one. We’ve got to fly across the country in an elimination game. We win in New York, we come home three days later, I think it was, then we’re right into the Minnesota series when we win the New York series. And that was obviously a battle-tested series, and having to come from behind in a couple of those games was the ending that we wanted? No, obviously not. And we’re all going to, you know, not be satisfied with that result. But I think when time has passed and some has, it’s allowed me to really reflect on how awesome this year was, and especially this group of brand-new people, and we had two people that were the same on our roster last year, just really come together and buy into one thing, and that was winning. And a big part of that was one of our leaders, which was Alyssa Thomas and really just being around that every single day, there’s only one thing that matters, and that is winning the basketball game. It just spreads like wildfire to everybody around you. So it was an incredible experience, one that I, for sure, will never forget, but hopefully one that we are able to feel again pretty soon. Q: What do you love about coaching in the WNBA? A: I love a couple of things. Number one, this was always a lifelong dream of mine to get to this level. Now, don’t get me wrong, I would love to be a player in this league, but for me to have the opportunity to coach in this league, after the opportunity to play in it didn’t work out. I didn’t see that ever as being an option. And so for me, it’s living out a childhood dream to be a part of this incredible League. The other part of it is that I love that it is just all basketball all the time, every single day. You know, everything is derived around, how can we be better? I’m on the offensive side of the ball, so how can we be better offensively? How can we work on our spacing? How can we put people in better positions? Yeah, it’s the relationship piece with our players, and then it’s all basketball, and that’s just the best. Q: Last question for you, what does the offseason look like for you? A: Yeah, it’s a little bit different than what college is, because obviously in college, you’re doing some recruiting and camps and clinics and fundraising and all of those types of things. For us, we take a little bit of time here, this past week, week and a half, and then some of our players will actually head back into the facility and train in November and December before they play in unrivaled or go to some of their overseas contracts. You know, some possibilities include us, going and training some of our players. I did that last year. I went and visited a couple of our players and trained them where they were at. And then in the first of the new year, that’s when free agency happens. And you know, we’re all getting ready for the next year, really self-scouting and scouting a league and seeing how we can be better. And before you know it, all of a sudden, training camps are right around the corner, and we’re prepping what we want to do. So it’s different. It’s a little bit of a different cycle, but it’s fun, because, again, it’s just all basketball and you get to really just dig in and grow and become a better coach.
https://sdsucollegian.com/32216/featured/former-jack-makes-her-mark/
