What Harvard Women’s Basketball Coach Carrie Moore Does to Develop Young Female Leaders

In women’s basketball today, there are several Dame Lillard-like shooters who defenders had better cover from the moment they cross halfcourt or get lit up from long range. Long before the likes of Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers were getting buckets, Carrie Moore was a big-time scorer who torched high school opponents, starred at Western Michigan, and later played in the WNBA and the Polish pro league. This is the story of how she transitioned from star player to coach of the storied Harvard women’s basketball program.

As she grew and her skills blossomed, Carrie was challenged to improve even more as a player and person by a legendary high school coach. Frank Orlando had claimed multiple titles and won over 800 games in a Hall of Fame career spanning more than three decades, and Carrie credits him with a lot of her development as both a baller and a leader.  

“Coach Orlando was like the grandfather I never had and he had a tremendous influence on me,” Carrie said. “He instilled grit and a blue-collar work ethic and was so hard-nosed that he always got after it on and off the court. We have a moniker here at Harvard that I got from our high school team: ‘Believe it.’ This always resonated with me because it gave me an unwavering belief that we could accomplish anything together. These words gave our team so much confidence in my first season at Harvard. You have to dare to dream and then believe in it.”

As her high school hoops career progressed, Carrie started garnering attention from some powerhouse programs. She chose to play at Western Michigan, amassing over 2,000 points and leading the entire NCAA in scoring her senior year. This led to a couple of stints in the WNBA and playing pro in Europe. But the grind of going back and forth (many professional players in the women’s game have to pull double duties because WNBA contracts still lag far behind NBA deals) and traveling across two continents started to wear on her. Carrie decided that if she no longer wanted to play, coaching would be the next best thing.

Learning the Coaching Ropes from Courtney Banghart

Rarely will someone have the chance to apprentice under one Hall of Fame-level coach like Frank Orlando. But in Carrie’s case, she was blessed to also learn from and work with Naismith Coach of the Year Courtney Banghart. The two spent five seasons together at Princeton, and when Banghart accepted the head coaching role at the University of North Carolina, she took Carrie with her.

“I had such a great experience with Courtney and wouldn’t trade it for anything,” Carrie said. “She taught me so much as a great coach and recruiter and has an infectious personality. Courtney is also great at building relationships and putting her people in positions to succeed. If I can do even half of what she has accomplished, I think I’ll be alright.”

As much as she loved working on Courtney’s staff, Carrie began to seek a new challenge. So she became an assistant coach and recruiter not far from where she played college ball. While at the University of Michigan, Carrie helped the Wolverines make it to the Elite Eight in the NCAA tournament. Although she relished the role, Carrie’s mentors began to tell her that she should progress in her career and take over a program. When Kathy Delaney-Smith announced that she would be ending her 40-year reign at Harvard, Carrie realized there was an unmissable opportunity. After interviewing with the school’s athletic director, the Crimson offered her the job.

Building a New Legacy on Core Values

In The Leader’s Mind, sports psychologist Dr. Jim Afremow and The Basketball Strong Podcast co-host Phil White revealed how Steve Kerr sought the guidance of Super Bowl-winning Seattle Seahawks Pete Carroll before he took over the Golden State Warriors. Carroll advised him to come up with four core values that would inform everything the organization did on and off the court. The results are undeniable: four NBA titles and Steph Curry winning two MVP awards. Carrie followed Carroll and Kerr’s blueprint when she decided to take the Harvard head coaching job.

“When we first got our staff together at Harvard, we did a two-day retreat,” Carrie said. “I think every team should have values that they fall back on each day, but I didn’t want these to be things I just came up with – I wanted everyone to help. So we had a war room and came up with a list of words. Then we spent hours going through them and deciding which we liked the most, why, and what they meant to our team. We finally came up with unity, grit, integrity, and joy.”

These were not merely words but principles that Carrie and her staff put into practice in every encounter with each other and – most importantly – in the trust, belief, and togetherness they instilled in Harvard’s players. When a legendary coach like Kathy Delaney-Smith retires, it can leave a void that takes years to fill, such as when Phil Jackson left the Chicago Bulls or Sir Alex Ferguson stepped down from Manchester United. But armed with her own “Core Four” and anchored by the “Believe It” motto, Carrie and her staff led the program to a winning season that earned them a berth in the WNIT.

“We inherited a group of individuals here, and as I said to them at our end-of-season banquet, what we are now is a team,” Carrie said. “We watched them transform and love each other in the best ways possible. To me, that was the biggest win of the season by far.”  

Developing Exemplary Female Leaders

Another victory is being able to offer an Ivy League education to young women who are deserving but might have never imagined that they’d get to go to college in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And then, once they get to campus, she helps equip players like star guard Harmoni Turner with the soft skills to go hard at whatever comes after college.

“I love giving the opportunity to study at Harvard to players and families who probably never thought that was even a possibility,” Carrie said. “I want to have the meaningful impact on their lives that all my coaches had on me. I want to help them grow, persevere, and handle adversity in a mature way. That way, when they leave, they’re ready to go set the world on fire.”

To hear Carrie’s full story, listen to her full episode here. And be sure to subscribe to The Basketball Strong Podcast on iTunes or Spotify so you never miss an episode!