Stephanie Ready

Stephanie Ready is an American broadcaster for the National Basketball Association's (NBA) Charlotte Hornets and a former basketball coach who became the first female coach of a men's professional league team in 2001. From 2001 to 2003, she was an assistant coach for the now defunct Greenville Groove of the National Basketball Development League (the minor league of the NBA).

After several years as the Hornets' sideline reporter and host, Ready was named an analyst on August 27, 2015, making her the first full-time female NBA game analyst. Ready was also a part-time sideline reporter for The NBA on TNT during the 2006 and 2007 NBA Playoffs, and the WNBA Playoffs on ESPN2 during 2006. Also in 2006 and 2007, Ready worked as a sideline reporter during the first and second rounds of the Women's Final Four of college basketball for ESPN2. Ready is an alumna of Coppin State University in Baltimore, Maryland.

Biography

A native of Takoma Park, Maryland, Ready was a standout basketball and volleyball player at Coppin State College (now University) in Baltimore, Maryland. Ready also ranked in the top 10 on the career list at Coppin State in steals (2nd), assists (4th), points (8th) and rebounds (10th). Ready graduated cum laude from Coppin State with a bachelor's degree in psychology. Ron "Fang" Mitchell, the men's basketball coach, hired Ready to coach the women's volleyball team. Mitchell was also the person that urged Ready to pursue coaching basketball and to hold off on graduate school.