Temple Women’s Basketball guard Aleah Nelson was just eight years old when she met Diane Richardson for the first time.
Nelson grew up in the Baltimore, Maryland area and played basketball her whole life. Around the time they met, Richardson was coaching high school ball for a preparatory high school while Nelson was making a name for herself as a player. The two crossed paths and hit it off quickly.
More than a decade later, Nelson is a key piece in Richardson’s Temple program, and their bond is closer than either could ever have imagined.
“She expects so much out of me,” Nelson said. “And she’s really, really hard on me, almost like a mother-daughter type thing. It’s tough love for sure, but it’s something that I need.”
Nelson is one of countless players impacted by Richardson’s care and concern. Her desire to form relationships with recruits and their families is part of the reason Richardson has been so successful at the high school and collegiate levels.
In her second year as Temple’s head coach, Richardson has set the foundation for a new culture on North Broad Street, and her recruiting abilities have been a major factor. As she begins the season, Richardson’s roster is starting to take shape, and her team seems more willing to play for her than ever.
FINDING HER STYLE
Richardson worked her way up the ladder in women’s basketball, starting at the high school level. Her first head coaching position was at Riverdale Baptist School in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. She found instant success there, winning five national championships in eight seasons, which earned her positions at the collegiate level at Maryland and American.
She also got to coach her adopted daughter, WNBA star and 2023 MVP Jonquel Jones, during her high school career. The pair even moved to the next level together, as Richardson became an assistant at George Washington when Jones started her freshman year.
Richardson’s roots at the high school level taught her how to build relationships with players and their families on the recruiting trail.
“When you’re recruiting high school players, young players, you recruit the family as well,” Richardson said. “I knew their parents had to be comfortable with me and sending their kids off to my school. It’s been something I’ve done for a long, long time.”
Richardson got a feel for what did and didn’t work by going on recruiting trips with Jones and her other players. She traveled the country with Jones, who entertained offers from schools like Florida and head coach Carolyn Peck.
One thing she realized on these trips was the type of players she needed in her programs. Richardson, who earned a spot on the 1980 track and field U.S. Olympic team, has always had a fierce drive to win and looks for players with that same mindset.
“She looks for competitors similar to herself,” said Myles Jackson, who joined Richardson’s staff at Towson and followed her to Temple. “She was an athlete, she was an Olympian, so she wants people who are going to compete no matter the competition.”
HITTING THE COLLEGE TRAIL
After four years at George Washington, Richardson accepted a job at West Virginia as its recruiting coordinator. There, she helped the Mountaineers bring in the 17th-best recruiting class in 2017, which included Ashley Jones from Neumann-Goretti, who ranked 75th in the ESPNW top 100.
The Mountaineers found success with Richardson’s recruits, finishing with winning seasons in each of the four years after the 2017 class enrolled.
After one season in Morgantown, Richardson was hired at Towson for her first head coaching job since Riverdale. She inherited a program that had just one winning season in eight years under two different head coaches.
Richardson flipped the trajectory of the program in just two seasons, winning the Coastal Athletic Conference title and leading the program to its first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance in 2018.
Richardson never lost sight of her “motherly instincts” along the way, she said. She was always the first in the gym to watch recruits and wanted to form a strong relationship with them as often as she could.
“Mothers like to see that I care about the players, but that hasn’t changed,” Richardson said. “It’s actually caring about these young ladies. My style hasn’t changed. Whether it’s at Towson or it’s a big program like Temple, it’s still the relationship piece.”
BUILDING HER STAFF
Richardson’s instinct to provide for the people she cares about does not stop at her players. Her coaching staff at Temple is made of people she worked with during her journey, and some she coached herself.
Wanisha Smith played for Richardson at Riverdale, where she became a McDonald’s All-American. She joined Richardson’s staff at Towson and worked her way up to an assistant coaching role. Jackson worked his way onto her staff by starting on the scout team at Towson, but his persistence in learning from Richardson earned him a manager position and, eventually, a coaching role.
Everyone on Richardson’s staff has worked their way up, learning how to coach under her and, in her eyes, proving themselves.
“I have a very open and honest staff here,” Richardson said. “We are all committed to us, to each other. We’re committed to our players because that’s the way I taught them. All of them have things that they’re really good at. I know that we filled all the holes that we need on a coaching staff.”
Her assistants have bought into her message about leading through love from day one, and it has trickled into their messaging in recruiting players to Temple.
“I tell players all the time that when they come to play for Coach Rich, they play at Coach Rich University,” Jackson said. “Whatever your dream is the moment you step foot on Temple’s campus, that’s our goal for you too. You want to play professionally, you want to be a doctor, you want to be a firefighter, you want to be a lawyer, whatever.”
HER NEW PROGRAM
With less than a week until Temple takes the floor with a new-look roster, Richardson’s original vision for her team is slowly starting to take shape.
Richardson brought Nelson, Tarriyonna Gary and Rayne Tucker with her from Towson to Temple and added Kendall Currence from CAA-rival Northeastern, but Tucker and Currence both missed last season. Midway through last season, Richardson dismissed two players from the program, and two more left.
She managed to finish with an 11-18 record despite completing the season with just eight active players, but the team had higher aspirations.
Now, Nelson, Tucker and Currence are all expected to be major factors. Richardson also added new recruits, like guards Demi Washington and Tristen Taylor and forward Jaleesa Molina.
For Richardson, her most important job is to instill enough confidence in her team that they feel comfortable playing her high-speed offense. Nelson was one success story, as she came in shy but ended up quickly turning that around.
“I’m very loud,” Nelson said. “I’m very cool, and I’m very loud. It’s not hard for me to talk all the time, to communicate, to be that leader, to have energy because it’s already within me.”
Richardson and her staff are looking beyond this year as well. The team already has several commitments in the class of 2024, including the second highest high school scorer in the country, Adena Webster, and a Pennsylvania state champion, Savannah Curry.
Curry’s decision to join the Owls was similar to Nelson’s, stemming from her relationship with Richardson. Curry saw Richardson at her games as early as her eighth-grade year, and Richardson’s dedication to watching Curry at every step of her journey was a deciding factor.
“She followed me the whole way,” Curry said. “She saw all the good games, she saw all the bad games and she still wanted me. That’s what really made me feel that Temple was probably the best decision for me.”
In just one full season, Richardson has revamped the culture of Temple Women’s Basketball by taking her time to show love for each of her players. With her eyes on the future of the program, Richardson feels confident her team is on the right track to contend in the conference for years to come.
“My way of giving them confidence that they can use throughout their life is first on the basketball court, just reassuring them, you can do it,” Richardson said. “Because if our staff teaches you how to do something, you’re gonna be able to do it, and I want you to be confident in that. And I’m confident in our team.”
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