Rene Portland

Summing up Rene Portland in a few words is never easy.  Few people in women’s basketball engender the range of opinion that she does.  Not only are opinions of her widely varied, most are strongly held.  Portland is a woman who stands up and shouts for whatever she believes in.  The fact that many find some of her values appalling is irrelevant to her.   

On the court, she has a system and that system works.  She consistently gets more out of her players than almost any coach around.  She has to do that because her behavior makes it difficult for her to get and keep players. 

On the court, Portland runs a three guard offense.  In three out of four seasons, she has excellent play at the point guard position.  The reason that one of every four seasons is below par is that that is the year that a freshman runs the point.  Portland recruits one player to start at that position for four seasons.  That is not a choice many coaches make, but it has worked well for Portland. 

To go with an excellent point guard, she always has a high scoring off guard.  That guard usually leads the team in scoring.  Her system is effective at getting shots for the guards.  While Portland has had some outstanding post players, the posts generally are not the featured players in her offense. 

Portland has used this system and her ability to get the most out of her players to win over 600 games.  Obviously she can coach.  At least she can do some of the things that go into coaching. 

It’s impossible to write about her without examining her behavior.  Portland is a woman who is ultra competitive and whose arrogance can be out of control.  She is certainly not prone to public self-analysis, and the consistency of her behavior strongly suggests that she does little self-examination in private either.  When things don’t go right, she has lashed out at her players.   Sometimes publicly, sometimes privately.  She has thrown players off the team for reasons that are not always appropriate.  She has had many players quit in the face of her behavior.  Many reports, and my sources, indicate that she has dismissed players that she perceives as lesbian. 

As a direct result of her behavior, she is not able to recruit at the level her on-court success should demand.  Because of the large number of players who leave her program early, she frequently has to play with a short roster.  Rather than continuing to elevate and build her program, she is frequently in recover mode.  She recovers well, but the fact that she has to do it so often, keeps her from being an elite coach.

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