Natalie Nakase’s Asian American roots help inspire her community on and off the court
· Yahoo Sports
ATLANTA — When the breast cancer came back and metastasized to her bones in 2021, Judith Fujito underwent various treatments for years before she decided to use California’s End of Life Option Act. She had lived with the intense pain, and she told her three adult children she didn’t want to linger in illness. In the weeks between her decision and her death, Fujito took time to see everyone she had come to know and love over her 86 years, and after spending six decades in the Bay Area, she had many people and places to bid goodbye.
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She called this her swan song, and she was pragmatic about it all. She knew this was the right way, for her, to do this.
Fujito died the morning of Aug. 13, 2026, at her daughter Barbara’s home. But the evening before, there was one final family gathering Fujito wanted to enjoy. She asked everyone to come together to watch the Golden State Valkyries and coach Natalie Nakase.
To Fujito, it was never just “Coach” or “Coach Nat,” as many fans have come to call her. It was always “Coach Natalie Nakase,” emphasis on the Nakase — a name Fujito instantly recognized as a traditional Japanese surname.
Fujito, a Japanese American, was a lifelong sports fan who played basketball in high school. So, when the Bay Area received a WNBA expansion team, she was overjoyed. But when the franchise hired Nakase as head coach, the team became her own. And the more she learned of Nakase, the closer she felt to the coach she never met.
Fujito had spent three years in a Japanese internment camp in California during the 1940s as a child, and she felt an even deeper connection to Nakase when she discovered her husband had been in the same internment camp where Nakase’s father was born. Though she was never healthy enough during either of the Valkyries’ two seasons to attend a game in person, she never missed them on TV, becoming a super fan.
“That was immediately the thing that connected her to the team,” Fujito’s daughter Barbara Fujito Fritschen said. “Then, she just became a fan and started watching all the games. I feel like that’s kind of what has drawn in a lot of people. I think a lot of Asians have been drawn in because the coach is Asian. … My mom, she definitely had a special pride.”
It wasn’t just Nakase’s name that Fujito recognized and to which she felt a connection. It was how Nakase acted with her players, how she spoke to the media, how she operated in a space that doesn’t have many people who look like her. She also loved that Kaitlyn Chen, a Taiwanese American, was on the team.
“To see someone like Kaitlyn, with the naysayers and the people who probably just didn’t believe in her, even her own community possibly, I think that’s really more amazing,” Nakase said. “She has to go out there and prove it with her physical talent and her mental talent, and I think that’s 10 times harder.”
According to a 2020 report by UCF, Asian representation in women’s college basketball was 0.7 percent the previous season. Nakase broke barriers as a female coach in the NBA, becoming the first woman to be on a G League staff, and in the WNBA, she’s just the second Asian American head coach. If she and the Valkyries take care of business in Game 7 on Saturday at Chase Center, Nakase will become the first female Asian American head coach to win a WNBA title.
Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, who’s Filipino American, understands the magnitude of what Nakase is approaching. In 2012, he became the first Asian American coach to win an NBA title (he won a second in 2013), and in the years since, he has spoken extensively about how he has used his platform to help open doors for other coaches.
“Where we can relate to each other is we don’t look the part. But what does that ‘part’ look like anymore? And I think that is the point,” Spoelstra said. “She’s inspiring this next generation of women, of any ethnicity, to say, hey, why not? That is powerful. I think that’s something she can be really proud of, even with her humility. She’s moving people. And ultimately, that’s what it’s all about.”
Linda Sayavongchanh, an assistant coach at Colorado State, said she has been encouraged to see more people of Asian descent in basketball. Growing up in Iowa as a Laotian American, she did not see many people who looked like her playing or coaching high-level hoops. As a player at Drake, she decided she wanted to pursue the coaching profession. She doesn’t remember connecting with many coaches who looked like her in her early years, but over the last 20 years — especially as Spoelstra and Nakase have won on the biggest stages — Sayavongchanh has felt the community of Asian and Asian American coaches growing. Sayavongchanh said it has been important in her career to connect with other coaches of Asian descent through the Asian Coaches Association, which has a gathering at the Final Four every year.
“It’s really cool, because we were the minority,” Sayavongchanh said. “But now, you’re seeing more of us.”
With that greater Asian representation among coaches and players, there has been a push inside many organizations for a more inclusive arena experience. The Valkyries hosted six cultural heritage nights this season, including Asian heritage night, Filipino heritage night, Southeast Asian heritage night and Japanese heritage night.
In Nakase’s first season, the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California, which helped plan Japanese heritage night, presented her with a daruma, a traditional Japanese good luck charm. This past season, Nakase sat down after the game for a chalk talk with members of the community.
As she has many times in her career, she credited her late father, Gary Nakase, and her upbringing for getting her to where she is. Nakase grew up in Southern California with two older sisters and her parents, who were second-generation Japanese immigrants. Her father was born in a Japanese internment camp in Arkansas in 1942, part of her family story she references often when asked about excelling in her sport.
“My dad built me like this, for these moments,” she said Thursday. “I’m just a reflection of how my dad raised me and what he poured into me — the belief, confidence, love, care factor and do whatever it takes.”
Now, by having a platform in the WNBA, she is providing that same belief to others just by walking the sideline.
Pranav Iyer, an Indian American, met Nakase in 2019 when he was working on a project for a college journalism class examining the rise of Asian American basketball and the lasting impact of Jeremy Lin, a Taiwanese America basketball player who inspired a cultural phenomenon dubbed “Linsanity” while playing for the New York Knicks. Iyer grew up in a diverse neighborhood in Silicon Valley with many children of immigrants. But when he attended Chapman University, he said, he began to more deeply embrace his identity as an Asian American as the only Indian American on his college football team. He related to Nakase’s story, and though he didn’t have a future as a coach, he did have an entrepreneurial spirit that led him to found AMAZN HQ, a platform that connects, identifies and empowers athletes of Asian heritage.
“She doesn’t fit the stereotypical mold in so many ways, right? She’s a woman,” Iyer said of Nakase. “She’s Asian American. She’s 5 foot 2, and you don’t kind of see many coaches like that at any level on both men’s and the women’s side. She’s defied all those things because she has used basketball as a universal language.”
That’s what drew Judith Fujito to the Valkyries.
Fujito Fritschen wanted her mother’s celebration of life ceremony to be a true celebration. To that end, her brother, David, who works for the San Francisco Giants, reached out to the Valkyries to see if they would provide some team shirts that could line chairs during the service, similar to the way Golden State has adorned Ballhalla for game days. The Valkyries happily obliged, sharing two boxes of lilac tees.
The family was setting up the space while Game 4 of the Valkyries-Dream finals series was on in the background, and occasionally, family and friends would yell out score updates. In Atlanta, down 2-1 in the series, the Valkyries evened the series that day as David lined the chairs, alternating “Ballhalla LOUD” and “We Are Ballhalla” shirts.
On Saturday, Fujito Fritschen will be in attendance for Game 7. She knows exactly what her mom would say to the team (because it’s what she’d yell at the TV during games): Keep on fighting. Don’t give up.
Judith Fujito never stepped foot in Chase Center during the Valkyries era, but Saturday, in a sea of lilac and with “Coach Natalie Nakase” roaming the sideline, Fujito Fritschen will feel her mom’s presence almost everywhere.
— Eric Nehm contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Golden State Valkyries, WNBA, Culture
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