University of Maine men’s basketball assistant coach Edneisha Curry is one of two women who will be guest coaches for the San Antonio Spurs at two NBA summer leagues.
Curry, the only full-time female assistant coach in NCAA Division I men’s basketball, will be joined by Lorena Infantes Nunez July 1-3 at the Salt Lake City Summer League and July 5-15 at the Las Vegas Summer League.
Curry is serving in her second stint as an assistant at UMaine under head coach Richard Barron. She was a player development and assistant coach for the Black Bears’ women’s basketball program from July 2015 to May 2017. She then worked with the NBA Assistant Coaches’ Program and the Atlanta Classical Academy as women’s athletic program manager.
Curry gained experience with the NBA Assistant Coaches Program by working in player development and scouting at the 2017 NBA Draft Combine and NBA G League Showcase.
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Curry returned to UMaine on March 30, 2018, to join the men’s basketball coaching staff under Barron, who had coached the women’s basketball team from 2011 to 2017 before taking the men’s head coaching job on March 5, 2018.
Curry began her college basketball career at California State University at Northridge before transferring to the University of Oregon. There she was named All-Pac 10 honorable mention as a senior while averaging 9.8 points and totaling 104 assists in helping the Ducks win the WNIT championship.
She was drafted by the Charlotte Sting with the 41st overall pick in the 2002 WNBA Draft and played professionally with the Phoenix Mercury and Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA as well as in Greece, Poland, Israel and Hungary from 2002 to 2009.
Curry went on to become a marketing assistant with NBA and WNBA Global Basketball with Adidas, and then began a coaching career that included stops in Vietnam, China, Israel and Palestine before her first post at UMaine.
Nunez, a native of Spain, recently coached at the Latin American Academy in Mexico City and also has coached Chile’s U17 Women’s National Team and the Chilean Wheelchair National Basketball Team.
Blake Ahearn, coach of San Antonio’s G League affiliate, the Austin (Texas) Gulls, will be the Spurs’ head coach for the Salt Lake City tournament.
Becky Hammon, who in 2014 was hired by San Antonio as the NBA’s first full-time, paid female assistant coach, will serve as head coach during the Las Vegas tournament.
Hammon is one of four full-time female assistant coaches in the NBA. Jenny Boucek, a former head coach with the Seattle Storm of the WNBA, was hired in 1998 by former UMaine player and current Dallas Mavericks’ head coach Rick Carlisle.
Lindsay Gottleib, the former head coach at the University of California, was hired on June 12 to serve as an assistant under new Cleveland Cavaliers’ head coach John Beilein. Former WNBA player, Olympic gold medalist and broadcaster Kara Lawson was named this week to join Brad Stevens’ staff with the Boston Celtics.
