Russian Women’s Basketball Team Picks Up New Coach
Spartak Moscow women’s basketball team has a new American coach, the former women’s coach at LSU, Pokey Chatman. She will be moving to Moscow in October to begin her 6 month stay in Russia.
She will be coaching in a league that features many WNBA stars that come here in the off-season for more money than they make in the United States. One of her former players, Seimone Augustus, as well as University of Connecticut standouts Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird play and it was that talent level that helped Chatman make the decision to tough out the rough Russian winters to take on the job.
She left LSU after coaching the Lady Tigers to three straight Final Four appearances due to accusations that she had behaved improperly with former players. She has been made another offer recently from a US college, but feels the Spartak Moscow offer is her best opportunity right now to move on from the LSU situation. Spartak Moscow is owned by oligarch Shabtai von Kalmanovic. Chatman has not commented on the salary she will be making, but as the two former Huskies stars make between $500,000 and $3 million a year, it is safe to assume that she will be making more that the $400,000 a year LSU was paying her.
Tags: Russian News, Russian women
