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OU assistant Coquese Washington, who negotiated WNBA’s very first collective bargaining agreement, pleased with new landmark deal
By Tyler Palmateer
Transcript Sports Editor
It was 1998, autumn in New York City. Coquese Washington possessed the grit she’d grown up with in Flint, Michigan; a law degree and a jump shot.
She would need them all.
The Oklahoma women’s basketball assistant coach had starred at Notre Dame as a player, and later through law school, which made her an ideal teammate during negotiations for the WNBA’s first-ever collective bargaining agreement the following year.
Before the league’s first CBA in 1999, she’d been part of the round-up of WNBA players who unionized. She would serve as first president of the WNBA Players Association and was involved in a second, more contentious CBA negotiation in 2003, which brought the league free agency.
So when the WNBA reached a landmark deal Tuesday — a tentative CBA that will increase the average salary over six figures for the first time in history, among other benefits — Washington couldn’t help but feel joy.
“I’m just happy for the players,” she said. “Being a college coach, most of the kids we recruit have aspirations and designs on playing in the WNBA
and, you know, you want them to be able to go to that league and feel great about their working situation.”
While increased salary is a major aspect of the new deal, improved maternity leave, childcare and travel conditions are new pillars for player wellness. Overall, the players’ association earned a 53 percent revenue split with ownership, an increase of 23 percent.
“I mean, it’s hard to get 1 percent [increased]” Washington panned.
She knows too well.
Players were comforted by her presence in 1998-99 because of her law background. Rebecca Lobo, one of the league’s first stars and a New York Liberty teammate of Washington’s, had called her a “godsend.”
Washington and her group were facing experienced, powerful brokers during negotiations. Among the gatekeepers were former NBA commissioner David Stern and current commissioner Adam Silver.
On the other side were Washington and Lobo; there was Lisa Leslie, one of the game’s other big stars early on. Legal counsel included Billy Hunter, former NBA Players’ Association president, as well as Jamin Dershowitz, who has been with the league since inception and helped push through this week’s deal.
It was important business, and urgent. Many players had been coming aboard from the defunct American Basketball League, the first independent professional women’s basketball organization, which actually had better benefits than the WNBA — more cash, year-round health care, a retirement plan. But the ABL folded after two seasons in 1998.
“I think there was a sense with the players in the league this time, that this league is different. This one could last,” Washington said. “But it was a matter of, what do we need to do as players to help make sure this lasts?”
The group teamed up on numerous conference calls before negotiations started. One talking point arose continually: They couldn’t let professional women’s basketball fall into the category of part-time employment.
“If this thing is going to last, then this has to be our career,” Washington said. “It can’t be a hobby in the offseason. It was about, what kind of conditions can we create for every player in the league so that if you’re a WNBA player, this is your career.”
Those overtones continued into this week. WNBA players have historically fought for increased salaries to avoid joining overseas rosters in the offseason. The taxing practice of playing year-round was exposed last year when Breanna Stewart, a onetime No. 1 overall pick and the reigning Most Valuable Player, who was making just over $64,000 annually in 2019, ruptured her Achilles tendon playing for the EuroLeague title. She underwent surgery and
missed the following WNBA season.
While increased salaries might alleviate the year-round play issue, and have drawn the biggest headlines, Washington was pleased to see maternity leave and travel conditions greatly improved. Sharing hotel rooms and flying commercially were once common for WNBA players, but now each will receive an individual room on road trips and sit in premium economy class seating on flights.
Upon ratification, they’ll be given full salary on maternity leave, including a childcare stipend of $5,000, plus two-bedroom apartments for players with children.
Those would have been pipe dreams in ’99. Washington and her group were less focused on raising the salary ceiling than they were raising the salary floor, which was dangerously low.
“We were just trying to get maternity leave,” she said. “Like, we just don’t want to get fired if we get pregnant, you know?”
They were difficult discussions. Meetings were held in New York, where Washington had found work at a law firm, and both sides took turns leaving the building angry.
“They would pack up their stuff, walk out and say, ‘You guys are being unreasonable!’ And we’d go back to our offices and go, ‘OK, Are we being unreasonable? We’re not being unreasonable!” Washington said. “Then we’d come back to the table and maybe hours later, sometimes days later, we’d come back in and then we might get upset and go, ‘You guys are being unreasonable! There’s nothing left to talk about here! If maternity leave is not going to be on the table, there’s nothing left to talk about.’ And we’d walk out.”
Washington was familiar with how this went. Growing up, her parents were General Motors factory workers and members of the United Automobile Workers union in Flint.
She and other players quickly understood how posturing and gamesmanship fueled their talks.
“Deadlines would be missed,” Washington said, “and it would be, ‘OK, if we don’t have a deal in place by this day, we can’t have the draft.’ You know? We’d go, ‘OK, well that’s just new people coming in. Don’t have the draft.’” On Wednesday, April 15, 1999, just in time for the league’s tryout camp that weekend in Chicago, the two sides struck a deal ensuring a $25,000 minimum salary in place for rookies and a $30,000 minimum for veterans. The rookie minimum had been $15,000 annually.
Guaranteed contracts were put in place for any player active for at least half of one season. To protect job statuses of current WNBA players, only three former ABL players could join a team
per season — expansion clubs were allowed five — until 2000, at which point the league would expand by four teams.
And for the first time there was maternity leave, year-round health and dental care, plus a 401k plan.
“It was just a matter of finding that middle ground, and sometimes, yeah, tempers would flare,” Washington said. “We would be in there and we’d have to say, ‘This is important.’ And when you have Lisa Leslie sitting in the room saying, ‘this is important’ and when you have Rebecca Lobo saying ‘this is important,’ I think those voices carried weight.”
But so did Washington’s. It still does as OU’s associate head coach, a void she filled when the program overhauled its staff last offseason.
“My love for the law and my love for basketball kind of merged together in trying to hammer out those collective bargaining agreements,” she said. “And it was hard work, but for me personally, it was really thrilling to be able to merge two things into that I love dearly.
“You can’t negotiate off heart, off of feelings, like, ‘This is what we feel we should make.’ You’ve got to go in that room and you’ve got to be armed with the numbers, with projections. To get movement, you have to move away from feelings, and you have to be prepared. You have to have your facts together. And it sounds like that’s what they did [this week].
“I’m just really happy for the players, and happy that they get to have a tremendous playing experience, a tremendous professional experience, because I think this deal is continuing to move the needle in that in that sense that you’re a pro, and this is what it feels like to be a pro in women’s basketball in the United States.”
By Tyler Palmateer
Transcript Sports Editor
It was 1998, autumn in New York City. Coquese Washington possessed the grit she’d grown up with in Flint, Michigan; a law degree and a jump shot.
She would need them all.
The Oklahoma women’s basketball assistant coach had starred at Notre Dame as a player, and later through law school, which made her an ideal teammate during negotiations for the WNBA’s first-ever collective bargaining agreement the following year.
Before the league’s first CBA in 1999, she’d been part of the round-up of WNBA players who unionized. She would serve as first president of the WNBA Players Association and was involved in a second, more contentious CBA negotiation in 2003, which brought the league free agency.
So when the WNBA reached a landmark deal Tuesday — a tentative CBA that will increase the average salary over six figures for the first time in history, among other benefits — Washington couldn’t help but feel joy.
“I’m just happy for the players,” she said. “Being a college coach, most of the kids we recruit have aspirations and designs on playing in the WNBA
and, you know, you want them to be able to go to that league and feel great about their working situation.”
While increased salary is a major aspect of the new deal, improved maternity leave, childcare and travel conditions are new pillars for player wellness. Overall, the players’ association earned a 53 percent revenue split with ownership, an increase of 23 percent.
“I mean, it’s hard to get 1 percent [increased]” Washington panned.
She knows too well.
Players were comforted by her presence in 1998-99 because of her law background. Rebecca Lobo, one of the league’s first stars and a New York Liberty teammate of Washington’s, had called her a “godsend.”
Washington and her group were facing experienced, powerful brokers during negotiations. Among the gatekeepers were former NBA commissioner David Stern and current commissioner Adam Silver.
On the other side were Washington and Lobo; there was Lisa Leslie, one of the game’s other big stars early on. Legal counsel included Billy Hunter, former NBA Players’ Association president, as well as Jamin Dershowitz, who has been with the league since inception and helped push through this week’s deal.
It was important business, and urgent. Many players had been coming aboard from the defunct American Basketball League, the first independent professional women’s basketball organization, which actually had better benefits than the WNBA — more cash, year-round health care, a retirement plan. But the ABL folded after two seasons in 1998.
“I think there was a sense with the players in the league this time, that this league is different. This one could last,” Washington said. “But it was a matter of, what do we need to do as players to help make sure this lasts?”
The group teamed up on numerous conference calls before negotiations started. One talking point arose continually: They couldn’t let professional women’s basketball fall into the category of part-time employment.
“If this thing is going to last, then this has to be our career,” Washington said. “It can’t be a hobby in the offseason. It was about, what kind of conditions can we create for every player in the league so that if you’re a WNBA player, this is your career.”
Those overtones continued into this week. WNBA players have historically fought for increased salaries to avoid joining overseas rosters in the offseason. The taxing practice of playing year-round was exposed last year when Breanna Stewart, a onetime No. 1 overall pick and the reigning Most Valuable Player, who was making just over $64,000 annually in 2019, ruptured her Achilles tendon playing for the EuroLeague title. She underwent surgery and
missed the following WNBA season.
While increased salaries might alleviate the year-round play issue, and have drawn the biggest headlines, Washington was pleased to see maternity leave and travel conditions greatly improved. Sharing hotel rooms and flying commercially were once common for WNBA players, but now each will receive an individual room on road trips and sit in premium economy class seating on flights.
Upon ratification, they’ll be given full salary on maternity leave, including a childcare stipend of $5,000, plus two-bedroom apartments for players with children.
Those would have been pipe dreams in ’99. Washington and her group were less focused on raising the salary ceiling than they were raising the salary floor, which was dangerously low.
“We were just trying to get maternity leave,” she said. “Like, we just don’t want to get fired if we get pregnant, you know?”
They were difficult discussions. Meetings were held in New York, where Washington had found work at a law firm, and both sides took turns leaving the building angry.
“They would pack up their stuff, walk out and say, ‘You guys are being unreasonable!’ And we’d go back to our offices and go, ‘OK, Are we being unreasonable? We’re not being unreasonable!” Washington said. “Then we’d come back to the table and maybe hours later, sometimes days later, we’d come back in and then we might get upset and go, ‘You guys are being unreasonable! There’s nothing left to talk about here! If maternity leave is not going to be on the table, there’s nothing left to talk about.’ And we’d walk out.”
Washington was familiar with how this went. Growing up, her parents were General Motors factory workers and members of the United Automobile Workers union in Flint.
She and other players quickly understood how posturing and gamesmanship fueled their talks.
“Deadlines would be missed,” Washington said, “and it would be, ‘OK, if we don’t have a deal in place by this day, we can’t have the draft.’ You know? We’d go, ‘OK, well that’s just new people coming in. Don’t have the draft.’” On Wednesday, April 15, 1999, just in time for the league’s tryout camp that weekend in Chicago, the two sides struck a deal ensuring a $25,000 minimum salary in place for rookies and a $30,000 minimum for veterans. The rookie minimum had been $15,000 annually.
Guaranteed contracts were put in place for any player active for at least half of one season. To protect job statuses of current WNBA players, only three former ABL players could join a team
per season — expansion clubs were allowed five — until 2000, at which point the league would expand by four teams.
And for the first time there was maternity leave, year-round health and dental care, plus a 401k plan.
“It was just a matter of finding that middle ground, and sometimes, yeah, tempers would flare,” Washington said. “We would be in there and we’d have to say, ‘This is important.’ And when you have Lisa Leslie sitting in the room saying, ‘this is important’ and when you have Rebecca Lobo saying ‘this is important,’ I think those voices carried weight.”
But so did Washington’s. It still does as OU’s associate head coach, a void she filled when the program overhauled its staff last offseason.
“My love for the law and my love for basketball kind of merged together in trying to hammer out those collective bargaining agreements,” she said. “And it was hard work, but for me personally, it was really thrilling to be able to merge two things into that I love dearly.
“You can’t negotiate off heart, off of feelings, like, ‘This is what we feel we should make.’ You’ve got to go in that room and you’ve got to be armed with the numbers, with projections. To get movement, you have to move away from feelings, and you have to be prepared. You have to have your facts together. And it sounds like that’s what they did [this week].
“I’m just really happy for the players, and happy that they get to have a tremendous playing experience, a tremendous professional experience, because I think this deal is continuing to move the needle in that in that sense that you’re a pro, and this is what it feels like to be a pro in women’s basketball in the United States.”
