(Photo via Janaé Bradford/WCSN)
When former Arizona State Women’s Basketball head coach Charli Turner Thorne decided to retire in 2022 after 25 seasons at the helm, the program was forced to undergo a sudden transition period. While the 2023 season hasn’t been as glorious as Sun Devils fans hoped on the court, there has been a light in the dark off the court: the relationship between first-year head coach Natasha Adair and junior guard Tyi Skinner.
The pair may be new to the desert, but they’re quite familiar with each other, as Adair previously coached Skinner for the past two seasons at Delaware. What started a player-coach relationship quickly became something deeper and reminiscent of a mother-daughter dynamic. Adair became a mentor on and off the court for Skinner, with the two talking daily outside of practice.
“I used to call her every day my freshman year, and my teammates would say it was weird like, ‘Why are you calling your head coach all the time?’ but I just love her as a person. It really didn’t have anything to do with her being a coach,” Skinner said.
Two years later, their bond has only strengthened. Skinner’s curious nature, paired with Adair’s wisdom, has allowed them to grow and succeed together.
“We talk as much as I talk to my son and my daughter, literally daily, about what she’s thinking,” Adair said. “Is that the right approach? Is that the right decision? Because she’s so inquisitive. She always wants to know why, and not in a challenging (way), but she’s really processing, and she wants to understand. She wants to get things right. She wants to win, not just on the court, but in life.”
Though the two had a special relationship from the beginning, it took time for Adair to trust her young guard on the court. She didn’t just let Skinner take whatever shots she pleased, but instead, Adair taught Skinner how to play within her role and help the team succeed. Skinner wanted to be the one to take big shots and play in key moments, but she and Adair knew that she had to mature before she was ready for that type of responsibility.
“At Delaware, it was more so be patient, play your role,” Skinner said. “You’re a great player, just keep working, and now that I’m older, it’s more so be a leader, take charge. Get your team to follow you. Bring everybody along instead of follow first. We’ve been through a lot since my freshman year, just me learning her and her learning me, and just me showing her that I want to continue to learn and know what she wants out of a player.”
At ASU, Skinner has blossomed into one the most prolific scorers in the nation. This season, she’s averaging 18.7 points per game, good for 29th in the NCAA and up from 12.8 points last season.
Not only is Skinner learning how to excel in her role as a scorer, but she’s also learning how to help put her teammates in the best position to play their roles. In her previous seasons at Delaware, she played behind four seniors in the rotation and had to follow their lead. Now, she is one of the more experienced players on ASU’s squad and has to be the one that sets the example for others to follow. Through this transition, she gained a new perspective on what it means to be a leader and is working to fulfill that role for the Sun Devils.
“What I thought initially was a leader is a person who comes in and works every day and just puts their head down and does what they’re supposed to do,” Skinner said. “As I’m getting older, as Coach (Adair) is teaching me, it’s more than that. It’s just about having patience and about bringing others along with you, trying to get them to buy in, and really trusting you on the court.”
While Skinner is working to achieve those qualities, Adair believes that Skinner has already grown a lot as a leader. She came to Delaware as a young player looking to prove herself and is now looking to help her teammates succeed whenever she can.
“For her, her plan A is the team now versus, coming in as a freshman, it might have just been her,” Adair said. “She is so we over me, and I think that is that growth and maturation process, and that is why she will continue to have success and why we will have success.”
Another area where Adair sees Skinner’s growth is dealing with adversity. This may not have been as much of a problem at Delaware, considering she only lost nine games in her two years as a Blue Hen and got to play in two conference championships. However, now, Skinner’s in a different situation where she has to help rebuild the foundation of a program.
“She’s coming from a program at Delaware where it was already built, and the bricks were already laid,” Adair said. “She was a piece to that puzzle of a culture that was already established. I think for her, helping to establish this culture and build a new culture, that’s different for her. … she’s growing leaps and bounds from adversity, and I think that will help her, obviously, as a leader.”
Of course, there is still plenty of work to be done for both Skinner and Adair, but their intimate relationship may prove to be vital to rebuilding the culture of ASU Women’s Basketball. Although times may be tough right now, Adair continues to remain positive, searching for the light at the end of the tunnel.
“I tell the whole team, on the other side of adversity is a story, and normally, it’s a success story,” Adair said. “I’m just excited to see (Skinner) lead us, along with her teammates, through it so we can celebrate on the other side.”
