WNBA legend Tina Charles is the New York Liberty’s all-time main scorer. She’s additionally its latest intern.
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NEW YORK — During a stoppage in Game 2 of the New York Liberty’s first-round WNBA playoff collection towards the Minnesota Lynx final week, the jumbotron confirmed Liberty legend Tina Charles, prompting a roar from the sellout crowd at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Under her title on the jumbotron learn “Liberty all-time scorer,” acknowledging the three,739 factors Charles scored for the franchise from 2014-19. Charles, who retired in May following a 14-season, accolade-laden profession, thought a special title would have been extra appropriate.
“Actually, what I wanted there — I was like, ‘Put Liberty intern,’” Charles mentioned.
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Since September, Charles has served as an intern within the Liberty’s entrance workplace as she pursues a grasp’s diploma in sports activities administration at her alma mater, the University of Connecticut.
For Charles, the internship has been the most recent enterprise in what she describes as a transformative interval in her life as she delves additional into her id off the basketball court docket.
“It’s been really great just to get to know myself,” Charles mentioned. “I think I gave everything I could in the space of basketball on and off the court. Now, I just get to be Tina.”
Looking forward to retirement, Charles noticed herself as the kind of former athlete who would wish an entire break from basketball — or, as she put it, “go under a rock and do my own thing.” That modified when she was supplied roles as an analyst for a number of networks overlaying the WNBA and FIBA World Cup in September.
That expertise allowed her to benefit from the contest from a special seat, she mentioned.
“I think I fell in love with the game even more in a different way with a different understanding of it,” Charles mentioned.
The internship stemmed from a cellphone name Charles made to Liberty CEO Keia Clarke, whom Charles has recognized since she joined the franchise as a athlete in 2014. At that point, Clarke labored in New York’s advertising division.
Charles, who has leaned on Clarke through the years for infrequent enterprise recommendation, requested if she may start an internship with the Liberty as she pursued graduate faculty at UConn.
“It was an absolute no-brainer,” Clarke mentioned. “I don’t typically have an intern who reports directly to me, so this is unique in that regard. This is really about exposure from the crossover and transition from being a pro athlete to learning the ins and outs of a pro franchise.”
Charles reviews to the Liberty workplace round 10 a.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Over the course of a day, she’s going to shadow Clarke in conferences about operations, advertising, manufacturers and partnerships — even, or particularly, conferences for mascot Ellie the Elephant. On Wednesdays, Charles makes the two-hour drive to Storrs, Connecticut, to attend her sports activities administration courses at UConn.
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The thought of Charles — who additionally holds the franchise profession file for rebounds — re-entering the group as an intern has naturally resulted in moments of jest. At the beginning of her internship in September, Charles posed with an indication typically reserved for a kid’s first day at college. It listed her age (“37”), what she loves (“beer”) and who she desires to be when she grows up (“Keia Clarke”).
While Charles enters the internship with vital enjoying acumen, she additionally brings an entrepreneurial pedigree not many gamers can boast inside their first six months of retirement. In addition to persevering with to work along with her Hopey’s Heart basis — which raises consciousness of sudden cardiac arrest by putting automated exterior defibrillators in numerous places — she additionally based a brand new craft beer firm, 78 Brewing Co. in July.
Clarke mentioned that résumé offers Charles a singular skill to capitalize on the expertise of her internship in various methods.
“For Tina, this experience is just another prong in that wheel. She’s sort of a Jill of all trades,” Clarke mentioned. “I think coming from a space of [the] internship, while we sort of laugh and joke and we call her ‘the legend slash intern’ … really, it allows for space. There’s air cover for her to ask questions — for her not to know everything — but also, at the same time, to be able to apply it to real businesses or real situations and real leadership opportunities that she’s also executing.”
Charles mentioned gamers are taught to reside within the second, whether or not that’s inside a contest or a single possession. As an intern below Clarke, that mentality has been flipped.
“When you’re in the front office, you have to plan ahead,” Charles mentioned. “You have to be two, three months ahead of what your marketing plan is, brands and partnerships, players, experiences, just how everything ties together for it to be seamless.”
Charles has gained a deeper appreciation for the work accomplished by these exterior the gamers and training employees who actually make the franchise go. Clarke recalled bringing Charles to an all-hands assembly wherein the roster offered the idea for the Liberty’s new opening video for the playoffs.
“I’m sort of watching other people’s reaction in the room, and particularly I’m watching Tina’s,” Clarke mentioned. “We walked out of that meeting and she said, ‘I had no idea. Players have no idea. We’re in the arena. We hear the music. We see the videos, but we don’t know how much goes into it.’”
Charles’ perspective as a former athlete has additionally shone within the manufacturers and partnerships division, the place she emphasizes the significance of athlete training concerning partnership and franchise initiatives.
“As a player, you go into your locker room and there’s a gift,” Charles mentioned. “There’s products for you to use, but we’re not given the explanation of when or why we should use it, or why it’s important for us to engage and want to make the partnership what the organization was hoping it would become. So, education is very important.”
Charles credit Clarke with creating an atmosphere wherein she felt her voice and perspective held worth. For Clarke, Charles’ perspective has stuffed a void within the Liberty’s course of.
“She has curiosity, and she’s not afraid to speak up. She asks questions and she gives comments,” Clarke mentioned. “We don’t always have the benefit of including someone who just finished [playing], to give the player perspective on some of the marketing, community or partnership initiatives. … Hopefully, she benefits as much as we’re benefiting so far.”
Charles’ success inside her internship extends past the work itself. She holds nice admiration for the Black girls on the helm of the Liberty’s operations: Clarke; Shana Stephenson, chief model officer; and Morgan Taylor, vp of enterprise operations.
“Seeing three Black women in these positions holding these titles is very inspiring,” Charles mentioned. “You don’t really see that. So it’s great to just see how they all work together, how everything blends together, everything behind the scenes.”
Charles isn’t solely positive what route she’s going to take upon commencement. While she desires to work in a WNBA entrance workplace, she isn’t dashing the pursuit. Instead, she enjoys determining her subsequent transfer whereas absorbing all the pieces she will from the completely different rooms she has occupied since retirement.
“I think there’s beauty in that,” Charles mentioned. “Broadcasting has been really great to me. My beer company and the growth of it is important to me right now. [I’m] just staying close to the game.”
Juggling a number of entrepreneurial hats, Charles is absolutely immersed in her internship with the franchise that ushered in one of the vital dominant eras of her profession. While she’ll stay an all-time franchise nice for what she completed on the court docket, Charles is constructing a brand new chapter exterior of her enjoying profession.
She would really like the sector’s jumbotron to replicate that transition as nicely.
Charles joked, “I think they’re going to put ‘Liberty intern’ next time.”
Sean Hurd is a senior author for Andscape who primarily covers girls’s basketball. His athletic peak got here on the age of 10 when he was named camper of the week at a Josh Childress basketball camp.
