Pacers’ Assistant Coach Jenny Boucek Makes NBA History While Focused on Finals

As the Indiana Pacers prepared for a must-win Game 6 of the NBA Finals, assistant coach Jenny Boucek was right in the mix.

A “Magical” Season Fueled by Joy and Unity

Boucek describes this season as unique. “We’re very aware that this season has been somewhat magical for us,” she said. “There’s been a grace to what we’re doing and a joy and a cohesiveness.”

Although her official title is ‘assistant coach’, Carlisle has given her key duties. The team’s defense development and the unleashing of innovative, football-style play designs that have gone viral more than once this season are central to their role.

“This year, it’s been a lot of focus on just bringing the defense together and working with the players and the staff on creating a system that maximizes our skill set,” Boucek explained.

Boucek’s path to the NBA is rooted in her impressive career in women’s basketball. In 1997, she played as a guard for the Cleveland Rockers in the WNBA’s inaugural season, and then went on to coach in the league before moving to the NBA in 2017 with the Sacramento Kings. Boucek remembered the emotion in the stands while reflecting on her time in the WNBA.

“It was very impactful and made a big impression on my young mind to look up in the stands and see young girls like, almost perplexed, to see women doing something that they’d never seen women do,” she said. “But the thing that really got me was to see the grown women in the stands in tears… This league represents all the no’s that these women have heard their whole lives, and this represents a massive yes.”

Boucek now receives regular messages from fathers thanking her for her role in their daughters’ lives. Although she steers clear of the spotlight, she acknowledges the weight of her presence.

“I do feel a responsibility to represent women a certain way, to represent mothers a certain way.”

Boucek’s daughter Rylie was born just days after she accepted a coaching role with the Dallas Mavericks in 2018. Despite her late-stage pregnancy, NBA teams were eager to learn about her expertise, and the Mavericks collaborated with her to create a non-traveling position during the early months of motherhood. The Pacers supported her by funding travel for her daughter and a caregiver on extended road trips after she joined Carlisle in Indiana. Boucek believes that this kind of forward-thinking policy should be a model for all industries.

“I hope that one of the byproducts of this is that the NBA and the Pacers are setting an example for all corporations,” she said.

The Next Milestone?

Carlisle has publicly endorsed Boucek as a future head coach in the NBA, a milestone that has never happened to a woman before. Boucek has held the top job in the WNBA twice and is open to the idea, but says it’s not her driving ambition.

“If my next assignment, and I feel it’s a purposeful assignment, is to be the head coach in the NBA, I will be very honored to take that honor on and represent women and just show that different types of leaders can be successful.”

Jenny Boucek’s current focus is on assisting the Pacers in winning Game 6 and possibly claiming an NBA title. The headlines that will make history can wait.