Legendary duo of Elizabeth Williams, La’Keshia Frett join forces as WNBA’s Atlanta Dream opens season
Elizabeth Williams begins her seventh WNBA season Friday, and when the Atlanta Dream tips off, another former Hampton Roads basketball legend will be watching from the sideline.
La’Keshia Frett, a former Phoebus High star and All-American for Georgia, joined the Dream this week as an assistant coach. Frett, a former assistant coach at Virginia, spent the 2019-2020 season as an assistant at Auburn.
Williams, a former star at Princess Anne High in Virginia Beach and an All-American at Duke, has been with Atlanta for the previous five seasons and is the club’s all-time leading shot blocker. She was named to the WNBA’s all-defensive team last season.
“Coach Frett is a 757 legend,” Williams said in a text message Wednesday. “As soon as I heard she was joining our staff, I was really excited. She is one of the best in the entire history of our sport, so what better time than the league’s 25th season for her to help lead us?”
At Phoebus, Frett was named the 1993 National Prep Player of the Year. She remains the Virginia High School League boys and girls career scoring leader with 3,290 points.
Frett played seven seasons in the WNBA and two seasons in the American Basketball League. She was an assistant at Georgia and U.Va. before joining Auburn’s staff.
“I am just excited for the opportunity to be a part of the Atlanta Dream and work with the coaches and the players,” Frett said in a release from the Dream. “Being a former WNBA player and having the chance to be back in the league but in a different way feels great. I’m absolutely excited about the opportunity.”
The WNBA tips off the league’s 25th season Friday, and games will be held at home courts with limited attendance. All games were played in a bubble in Florida last season because of the pandemic.
In Atlanta, the Dream has new owners after former player Renee Montgomery was part of a three-member investor group that was approved to purchase the team. The ownership change followed pressure on former Sen. Kelly Loeffler, a Republican who angered WNBA players with her opposition to the league’s racial justice initiatives, to sell her share of the Dream.
Williams was among a group of WNBA players who campaigned for Democrat Raphael Warnock after Loeffler criticized the league’s support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
Elsewhere in the WNBA, another former Hampton Roads star begins her coaching career.
Sugar Rodgers, who starred for King’s Fork High in Suffolk and Georgetown, was hired last week as a Las Vegas Aces assistant coach on Bill Laimbeer’s staff. Rodgers played eight seasons in the WNBA and was part of an Aces team that reached last season’s WNBA Finals.
“I’m excited to get started on the next part of my career, and I can’t think of a better place to do it than Las Vegas,” Rodgers said on the Aces’ website. “I’m obviously very familiar with Bill’s system as well as with many of the players on the team , and I’m grateful for the opportunity to be a part of what has been, and will continue to be, the best franchise in the WNBA.”
In 2019, Rodgers averaged 3.4 points, 1.3 rebounds and 1.4 assists while playing in all 22 games.
Jami Frankenberry, 757-446-2376, jami.frankenberry@pilotonline.com
