A Bit of Basketball Magic

Trudi Lacey ’82, ’90 ms set all sorts of records when she played basketball for the Wolfpack in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was part of the first NC State women’s basketball team to win an ACC championship, and was named to the All-ACC Tournament team for four consecutive years.

But the prospects for a career in basketball seemed dim when Lacey earned her degree in business management. There was no WNBA yet, and still few female coaches in college basketball. “I thought I would go into banking,” Lacey says. When an aunt asked her why, Lacey’s response was simple — “To make money.”

Not satisfied with that answer, Lacey’s aunt asked her what she loved. “I said I love basketball,” Lacey recalls. “And she said, ‘Why don’t you pursue that?’”

And so she did, playing for the U.S. team in two World University Games before working her way up the coaching ladder (including a stint as a graduate assistant at NC State) until she was eventually named the head coach for the WNBA team in Charlotte, N.C. She also worked as the head coach and general manager of the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, and as an assistant director for USA Women’s Basketball.

It adds to a pretty impressive career in basketball, topped off by her current position as director of athletics at Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte. It also led to her latest honor — as one of the 15 newest members of the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. Lacey and the others (including former NC State tennis star John Sadri) will be inducted into the hall on April 21.

“I’m obviously thrilled,” Lacey said in a recent interview. “It’s a great honor, and I’m just really pleased about it.”

The recognition reflects, in part, Lacey’s role as a trailblazer at NC State — she was the first Black woman to be offered a four-year scholarship at the university. Lacey says she didn’t realize she had blazed that trail until well after her days as a Wolfpack player were over, but it’s a historical milestone that she now carries with pride.

“That’s maybe one of my proudest moments at NC State,” she says. “That helped set the tone and foundation for future athletes, particularly Black females.”

Lacey attributes much of her success in life to her coach at NC State, Kay Yow. “I met her when I was 12 years old, and she had an instant impact on me,” Lacey says. “She was a great teacher of the game, but we also learned life skills from Coach Yow. We called them Yowisms.

“She used a lot of positive affirmations, not only in her teaching but in the way she lived her life. She challenged us to become a kindler, gentler version of ourselves. I took that to heart.”

So as she had success, Lacey has strived to be a role model for others. In addition to her normal duties as athletics director, she is the senior lead for diversity, equity and inclusion programs and established a social justice court for the school’s athletes. She also has a foundation that holds a food drive each year and hosts an “All Sports Day” to bring kids from underserved communities to campus to learn about their sports offerings.

“It’s always in the back of my mind,” she says, “to inspire people, particularly Black females.”

While the opportunities for women in sports have grown in Lacey’s lifetime, she says women’s sports still suffers from a lack of media coverage and salaries inequities for female athletes, coaches and administrators. “We’ve made some progress, but we are still lacking in some areas,” she says. “We still have a lot of work to do.”

Although her playing days are over, Lacey still occasionally joins a friend in the gym to put up a few shots. She does it to “clear her mind and sweat a little bit.” But she acknowledges that touching a basketball still “feels like magic.”

“It has afforded me so many opportunities,” she says. “I had dreams of playing basketball and traveling all over the world. It’s crazy that that happened for me.”