Women’s Basketball great Seimone Augustus enters a new era this season with LSU

Seimone Augustus’ teammates called her “Money.” Not because she was showy, but for her reliability and exceptional skill. Quiet and understated, she’s long been known for letting her talent speak for itself.

Back in May, at a press conference naming her as a new LSU Women’s Basketball assistant coach, Augustus commented on transitioning from player to college coach, and finding a new voice in the process.

Her bona fides on the court are well known—the Baton Rouge native played at LSU, spent 14 years in the pros and is a three-time Olympic gold medalist. Outside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, a bronze likeness stands in her honor, its panels inscribed with a laundry list of accomplishments.

“I don’t talk loud. I talk softly,” Augustus, 40, told reporters that day. “I don’t talk often, and so that’s something that I always thought about when I thought about coaching. ‘How is that going to sound? What does this feel like? Who is Coach Money?’”

But if it sounds like it did during a show-stopping acceptance speech at the prestigious Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Enshrinement Ceremony in October, her voice will come through loud, clear and completely her own.

Welcome to the new era of Seimone Augustus.

Taking the podium in a custom lavender suit at her fourth hall of fame induction of 2024—and the most prestigious yet—Augustus started by singing a few bars from “Callin’ Baton Rouge.” It was enough to pull at the heartstrings of the gathered Tiger faithful. Then came the main course: an original ode that weaved her deep appreciation for the game of basketball with that of her home state.

“Basketball is a timeless grace. There’s a dance, a rhythmic trance, where the swamp’s sweet whispers merge with your dreams to take flight, and passions ignite,” she recited.

Friends and family teared up as Augustus performed her poem like a seasoned spoken word artist—never mind it was her first time. Her inflections and cadence were pitch-perfect. Her expressions, spot on.

“Louisiana’s spirit thrived in the game that I played,” she continued. “So watch me soar and watch me strive. And in every play I came alive—so that my dream could survive.”

The crowd went wild.

“It was just a fearless moment for me,” she tells 225 days later from her office in the LSU Athletics Administration Building, bedecked in congratulatory flowers and balloons. “I think it was just because it was about home. It became a calming, settling moment.”

Augustus made the acceptance speech look easy. Just like her game, it was backed by intense preparation. Augustus studied the work of poet Nikki Giovanni, writing lines of poetry over several months, and practiced with poet Charity Blackwell, who introduced her at an LGBTQ+ benefit in Washington, D.C., through the medium of spoken word earlier this year.

At the core of Augustus’ poem was profound gratitude for the sights, sounds and textures of the Bayou State—and the magic that can happen on a basketball court.

“I felt like I was speaking for so many people,” she says. “It did what it needed to do.”

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Good sport

Kim and Seymore Augustus introduced their only child, Seimone, to a variety of sports in her early childhood.

“I tried soccer, volleyball, golf, softball. You name it, they were just like, ‘Find something you like,’” she says. “Then one day, my dad gave me a basketball and said, ‘This is what you got to do with it.’”

Seymore, a frequent volunteer coach, showed his daughter how to shoot and dribble.

“It felt natural,” Augustus says. “He would show me something, and I could do it without having to even think about it.”

A pivotal moment came following a pickup game at now-closed Greenville Elementary School on North Foster Drive, where she played against her then-next-door neighbor.

“She beat me,” Augustus recalls. “I was torn up. I was so mad when I got in the car. But my dad told me, ‘You have to learn how to be a good loser before you can be a great winner.’”

Seymore then asked if she wanted to be good or great.

“I yelled, ‘I wanna be great,’ and I ran upstairs. We started training the next day,” Augustus says.

She worked out on the trip-prone gravel court in her driveway, while her dad armed the yard with makeshift challenges using lawn chairs and ice chests.

Augustus worked nonstop on shooting and agility, learning to dribble with her less dominant left hand by restricting her right arm with her dad’s belt.

Her love for the game grew, and she dreamed big.

The WNBA wouldn’t launch until 1997, when Augustus was 13. Before that, her loftiest goal was to be on the U.S. women’s basketball Olympic team. (She achieved it, winning gold medals in 2008, 2012 and 2016.)

A phenom at Capitol High School, Augustus made the cover of now-defunct Sports Illustrated for Women in 1999 with the headline, “Is She the Next Michael Jordan?” As the top high school recruit in the country, colleges nationwide pursued her.

LSU succeeded. She played for the Lady Tigers from 2002 to 2006, leading the team to three Final Four appearances and bringing new crowds and enthusiasm to the PMAC. Her statue, unveiled in 2023, stands outside alongside Shaquille O’Neal, Bob Pettit and Pete Maravich—making her the only woman athlete with a statue on campus. Her jersey, No. 33, was the first worn by a female student-athlete to be retired by the school.

Bob Starkey, a longtime LSU assistant and current associate head coach for the Lady Tigers, says that Augustus’ reputation for being a hard worker is no exaggeration. Coaching her, he says, was “the absolute best.”

“You got her best every day,” Starkey says. “She’s one of those players who comes along once in a lifetime and spoils a coach. Here’s where your best player on your team is also your hardest worker.”

She was also a team player.

“I had one problem with Seimone all the years I coached her—and that was we couldn’t quite get her to shoot enough,” Starkey says. “She was so unselfish. She was so concerned about involving her teammates.”

LSU teammate Ashley Johnson, now an assistant women’s basketball coach at Furman University, remembers how relentlessly Augustus, who still works out twice a day, prepared.

“I think one of my greatest takeaways was just how hard she worked,” Johnson says. “She was obviously the best player on our team, but to always see her just getting in extra shots, or just how hard she went every single day in practice—that’s how you go about being a great athlete.”

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Future in focus 

It’s not lost on Augustus that she retired from women’s basketball a few years before the sport exploded in popularity. But she’s glad to see the change.

“It’s the open-mindedness now about things that we have been yelling and screaming about for years,” she says. “And whether they see it now as an investor, business-wise, or as a fan, it’s just a beautiful thing to finally see it taking off.”

The No. 1 WNBA draft pick in 2006, Augustus was chosen by the Minnesota Lynx, where she played for 14 seasons. Her long list of accolades includes winning four championships and being named an eight-time All-Star. The Lynx also retired her No. 33 jersey.

Augustus’ parents frequently made trips to Minneapolis-St. Paul to watch her play, frying fish in her apartment for her teammates and neighbors.

Bringing Augustus back to Baton Rouge was a few years in the making. She retired from the sport in 2021 and says she took some time for introspection. She went on to serve as an assistant coach for the Los Angeles Sparks and as a facilitator in the players-led Athletes Unlimited league before LSU Women’s Basketball Head Coach Kim Mulkey coaxed Augustus back to the Tigers.

Mulkey first reached out regarding the position about three years ago, but Augustus says the timing wasn’t right. Mulkey tried again this year after the retirement of assistant coach Johnny Derrick.

This time, the answer was yes.

“It’s no better place to be,” says Augustus, who joked that she sometimes can’t keep her friends and family away from her new office during the workday.

“I thought about all the growth that I had from my time entering here in high school as a player, four years of growth to get ready for the pros,” she continues. “And I feel like my transition was probably one of the smoothest transitions as a player. If that happens again as a coach, where I have the opportunity to grow and then transition into a head coaching position, that would be so amazing.”

Coaching college athletes is different from anything Augustus has done before, but Mulkey says her background as an LSU alumna and a WNBA veteran gives her a unique perspective. And while it takes time to learn the coaching ropes, she says Augustus is already contributing.

“She just knows the game,” Mulkey says. “She’s already comfortable in making suggestions. I’m not sure how much I’m going to teach her. She may teach me more than I’ll ever teach her.”

So money.

Sideline style

Augustus’ love for off-the-court fashion was on full display with her choice of a custom lavender suit for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Enshrinement Ceremony in October, created by Unique Threads in Atlanta.

Her starting place was the color purple.

“I was going through the different purples, but I didn’t want to look like Barney,” she jokes. “I was like, ’It’s got to be something pretty, something soft.‘ … I wanted it to have a ’70s feel.”

Fans likely won’t see her in suits like that this season on the sidelines, however. She says she prefers comfort and is fine ceding the spotlight. “Nobody’s topping Mulkey,” Augustus says. “I’m more of a sneakers person. I’ll probably keep it simple and play off of her.”

33’s picks

The Capital City has changed a lot since Augustus left for Minnesota in 2006. “I’m learning Baton Rouge all over again,” she says.

Here are a few of her current favorite stops.

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Dr. FeelGood Organic Wellness

“Acai bowls are my current guilty pleasure.”

Tony’s Seafood

“It’s always been a staple.”

Louisiana Lagniappe

“Great for local seafood.”

Rock-n-Sake Bar & Sushi

“Mmm-hmm.”

Drunken Fish

“That’s my favorite pho spot.”

Elsie’s Plate & Pie

“The Hot Crawfish Melt with roasted tomato soup. Change your life.”

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This article was originally published in the December 2024 issue of 225 Magazine.