Just before the 2023-24 campaign, Madeline Sulka was hired by the College Park Skyhawks, which is the Atlanta Hawks’ G League affiliate team, as the first female assistant in the club’s history. This was considered an amazing step after serving only one year as an assistant video coordinator in the NBA.
Her ambition has driven her to someday become the NBA’ first-ever female head coach, an objective she’s poised for herself since she was still a player in 2017. “All basketball players can relate that you don’t always know exactly what’s next when you are done playing,” she said. “You love the game for so long, and it’s all you know. (Basketball) is engraved into who you are as a person.
“Coaching was never necessarily on my mind, (but) I was always a natural leader. I liked helping others and being that strong voice on the court that your teammates trust (and) that your coaches trust.”
Madeline Sulka looks to pursue her dream of being a head coach. @KobyBraunstein has the story. https://t.co/eUdNGRNCcT
— Cronkite News: Phoenix Sports (@sportscronkite) January 29, 2025
Sulka learned plenty when she performed as head video coordinator for the Sun Devils for three-long years, in a role that might not seem to flashy, but is incredibly important, as it is one of the best ways to convey a team’s philosophy.
One of the most successful stories of a coach who started as as video coordinator as ended up winning an NBA title as coach, is Heat’s Erik Spoelstra. The Miami icon first started in this role in 1995, and 13 years later was given the opportunity to become the head tactician of the South Beach franchise.
What exactly is the role of a video coordinator inside a basketball team’s staff?
Video coordinators are responsible for compiling film, analyzing it, and creating scouting reports for sessions with staff and players. “Anything that needed to get done for the coaching staff, I made sure got done,” Sulka said.
She then added: “Being a basketball coach is a very demanding and challenging position where the work is never done and there is always something to do. When you’re in these lower positions and climbing up the totem pole, the easier you can make your coaches’ jobs, the more valuable you are.”
Former coach Charli Turner Thorne, who has known Madeline since she was a young girl attending her camps, remembers her former assistant as a disciplined and contagious character. “Maddie is a stud,” Turner Thorne said. “She lights up a room when she walks in it.
“She’s very personable, and that’s what separates her because there are a lot of people that can get in the film room and cut the film. But Maddie always represented our program really well and carried a warm and bubbly personality.”
