A Basketball Junkie

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The next woman of basketball I want to educate the world on is Debbie Antonelli. Debbie Antonelli played basketball at North Carolina State University (NCSU) from 1982-1986 under the legendary Coach Kay Yow where she started three years as a shooting guard. While she was at NCSU she received a two degrees: Economics and Business. Debbie used her undergraduate career to learn a lot about how to be a great person from Coach Yow. Coach Yow had a way of making others feel like they were the most important person in the room even though she had so many honors and awards herself; Debbie is the same way. Coach Yow also worked hard at improving the women’s game of basketball and using the game as a vehicle to make the world aware of greater issues. Debbie is well on her way to being the same type of promoter. 

Upon graduation she continued her schooling and she received her Master’s degree in Sports Administration at Ohio University. Her main goal was to become an Athletic Director and her route to get there was by working in external affairs, marketing, and fund-raising because to her that is what made a great Athletic Director.

Well as God often proves that He leads our lives, Debbie’s life course took a turn. When she arrived at Ohio State University as the Director of Marketing she realized that the women did not have a TV contract. She took it upon herself to go to the local TV station and asked for a monetary figure of how much it would cost for her to get a package for the women. She got the figure and raised the money for eight games to be televised and she was fortunate enough to be the announcer. Thanks to her hard work and dedication to the women’s game her career took off. Soon after, she began getting offers regionally and then nationally to announce games and since then she has become the hardest working announcer in women’s basketball at the college and professional level.

Debbie is a basketball junkie! She dedicates her time and efforts to everything basketball in order to improve her knowledge of the game and the players that are playing it so she can announce with facts and educate those who are watching. Debbie spends a lot of time calling coaches, writing emails, watching game film and practices, and conducting interviews in order to prepare for the game. She takes pride in knowing all of the little things about players and coaches because that explains a lot about how they play. Debbie announces games in many different conferences, which means that she travels a lot during the season. However, she prepares for each game with the same amount of preparation!

Despite the busy schedule of broadcasting games Debbie has many other things going on. Debbie is a wife and a mother of three amazing boys and they all support her in what she does. Debbie’s family is very special and with their support she has been able to continue with the busy life that basketball demands. Debbie is a member on the Board of Directors for the Kay Yow Cancer Fund. She co-hosts a podcast called “Shootaround” where her and Beth Mowins discuss the game of basketball. Over the years she has created a trivia game full of fun facts about women’s basketball called “Full Court Pressure”. This trivia game is sold to help raise money for the Kay Yow Cancer Fund but also to increase the knowledge about the history of women’s basketball. Debbie also holds a vote for the ranking of the teams, the Naismith Player of the Year, Wade Trophy, and All-American selections. Finally, when Debbie Antonelli is not doing any of the previous activities she is hosting basketball clinics or putting teams through media training and team building exercises.

I was fortunate to go through her media training and team building and it was a very beneficial experience for me as a collegiate athlete but I also carried the training over into my professional career. Debbie came into our locker room and she started off with team building. We did an exercise with a paper man and the impact of negative comments versus positive comments on a teammate. Then she discussed the value of individual effort that can either help or hinder a team. At the end of team building she gave us an analogy that carried us through the season. Following team building Debbie gave us a few pointers on how to work with the media and represent our school and ourselves in the best way possible.

Debbie Antonelli helps anyone that is willing to put in the work into making women’s basketball a better game. If it involves improving the game you can bet that Debbie has at least one of her hands involved in the project. She has helped the game so much and the best part is that she is still very young and energetic and will continue to help the game grow for many years to come.

Check out Debbie Antonelli’s websiteand watch her broadcast some games this upcoming season.

Antonelli’s Words of Wisdom: if you spend much time with Debbie she will give simple lessons that are easy to remember. I have shared a few of them but I suggest you get to know Debbie Antonelli if you consider your life to be all about basketball.

3 B’s of an Interview

• Body language: it speaks louder than words so keep it energetic and positive.
• Brag: NOT about yourself but about a teammate. Let the public how good those around you are.
• Branding: represent yourself like everything you do is an advertisement for who you are.

3 W’s of a Point Guard

Who, Where, and When to deliver the ball.

 Debbie’s quote that she lives by every time she is in the gym:

            “Put on this earth to do what? SCORE!”

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• Basketball
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• USA Basketball
• HS/Club Basketball

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There is 1 comment on this post. Join the discussion!

billygene88 says:

She sounds amazing.!

Thursday, November 14, 2013 at 1:18pm EST

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