Bridgette Gordon blazed trails from DeLand to Tennessee, Olympics, WNBA and now coaching – Daytona Beach News-Journal

DAYTONA BEACH — Bridgette Gordon walked across the Ocean Center stage on June 2 and accepted the latest in her long line of awards.
She’s been inducted into Halls of Fame big, medium and small — Women’s Basketball, University of Tennessee Athletics, DeLand High School and more.
After leading the Bulldogs to the first Florida High School Athletic Association girls basketball championship in Volusia County history as a junior in 1984, she won two NCAA Tournaments with the Lady Vols in the late 1980s and played under legendary coach Pat Summitt. She captured All-American honors and the SEC Female Athlete of the Year prize for her efforts.
She helped the United States to Olympic gold. Her medal from the 1988 Seoul Games rests in a safety deposit box.
She contributed to the WNBA, suiting up during the first two seasons of the league’s existence along with her distinguished international career in Italy and Turkey.
And for the last 20 years, she’s been a college coach. Since 2023, she’s held her first head-coaching job at Florida A&M following assistant stops at Stetson, Georgia State, Wichita State, Tennessee and other Division I programs. 
Yes, as a DeLand native who grew up only a handful of miles away from Bethune-Cookman University, some locals — family and friends — tease her good-naturedly about coaching the Rattlers. But she dishes it right back to them.
All that to say, the plaque she claimed Monday was appropriate. Gordon became the Daytona Beach News-Journal’s first Studio IX Trailblazer Award recipient. New this year, the distinction is set up for someone who has paved the way for women in sports.
After the show, the News-Journal caught up with Gordon to discuss some of her career highlights. The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Daytona Beach News-Journal: You’ve accomplished so much. When you think back on your career to this point, where does your brain go first?
Bridgette Gordon: The first thing it starts with is back in elementary, really. That’s where it all started. That’s where the love was developed for sports — not one particular sport. It was for sports in general — the kickball, the tags, chasing the guys because I was already bigger than most of the young girls and guys. It started there.
DBNJ: What did you play growing up? Was basketball it?
BG: Everybody would be surprised. Softball was my sport. I was a third baseman. I have softball trophies forever. I love slow-pitch softball. And it was kind of like what (Volusia-Flagler Sports Awards guest speaker and former MLB All-Star Dee Strange-Gordon) talked about. I got to high school and realized there are no softball scholarships and the only way I’m going to school — because my parents couldn’t afford it — is to play basketball so I can have a full ride.
That particular summer of my sophomore year — because DeLand High School, at the time, was only 10th, 11th and 12th grade — it was called Blue Star All-American Camp in Philadelphia. I go there, and I come back home, and my mom was like, “What is all these letters?” It was all these schools, over 100, offering me a scholarship in basketball because I did that well at the Blue Star camp.
In high school, I played volleyball, I played basketball, I ran track and I played soccer. I was good at everything.
DBNJ: What do you remember about winning the state basketball championship at DeLand?
BG: I remember, vaguely, before we even got to the state, we had to play Edgewater in the regionals, and they had killed us early on. They beat us in the regular season by like 40 points. And then we beat them in a tough game (38-35), and I just knew we were going to state and we were going to win it. That Edgewater game in the regionals before we got to state was huge. But when I got to state, it was just some more of the childhood dreams — like, OK, a state championship, in high school, as a junior. It was so fun because you had played with some young ladies that we had been together since middle school, which was eighth and ninth grade. It was just so fun just doing something for DeLand High School that hadn’t been done.
DBNJ: Obviously, you’ve stayed around high school basketball since then. How have you seen it evolve in the last 40 years?
BG: Back then, you had the Street and Smith’s All-Americans. Now, you’ve got the McDonald’s All-Americans and the Jordan game. I’m not saying Street and Smith’s All-America isn’t a great name, but when you can name McDonald’s and you can have Jordan High School All-Americans, that says a lot where the game has grown. To me, I feel so great being a pioneer, having set that platform, laid the foundation, for the game to be where it’s at.
I can recall Pat Summitt talking about it all the time. I’m like, “Pat, why are we wearing Converse? Why are we not wearing this?” “Because Converse does so much for the women’s game.” “OK, why are we wearing BIKE uniforms? Why are we doing this?” Everything was to grow that game. God rest her soul. She’s up in heaven just watching us and looking down and saying, “Bridge, this is what I’m talking about.” She’s gone, and that’s the saddest part of it — that she’s not here to see it. She was definitely a pioneer, and she was all about growing the game.
DBNJ: How often do you find yourself now, as a coach, quoting Pat Summitt or catch yourself sounding just like her?
BG: Every day. Most coaches, nothing against them, they have to cuss or do this. I can just give them that stare — that Pat Summitt stare — and they know exactly what I mean and they know they’re about to get themselves in order. She’s all over me. Her legacy will live on through so many of us. We are her disciplines. We branched off her tree, and I carry her with me in my heart. 
I am definitely Pat Summitt because she was all about defense, and that’s me. I’m preaching defense. I don’t care if they can score 30. I’m like, “Can you play defense? Can you guard? You want to play that position, but can you guard that position?” That’s the key. She’s with me daily. 
I know she would be proud looking down at me. She saw this so long ago. When we sit here and talk about it, I get chills because I was a spoiled little girl going to Tennessee. She did shape me and mold me into the woman that I have become today. I give her a lot of the credit. She saw that I’d be here on this platform that I’m on, and she groomed me very, very well. She prepared me for this moment in life. And like I said, as the accolades continue to come down, that was all the fruit coming from the labor and the seeds that I planted in great soil long, long ago. Now, it’s a harvest of all my fruit. I haven’t touched a basketball to score a bucket since 2001. But I still make buckets against my ladies in practice.
DBNJ: How often are you lacing up the shoes and showing your players how it’s done?
BG: Oh, I lace it up every day. I lace it up every day, just in case they forget. I have to show them. With my nails, with my hair on. I’m like, “Ladies, it’s a touch. It’s a feel. It’s muscle memory. You never forget.” Now, the conditioning part is something different.
DBNJ: You won two national championships in college. You played for Pat Summitt. You earned all kinds of awards. What stands out to you when you reflect on your four years at Tennessee? What pops to mind first?
BG: I was just talking about it the other day. Believe it or not, all those accolades, it was the pole. We have a traditional pole that sits in our locker room. Every Lady Vol that stayed with Pat went on to graduate. She had a 100% graduation rate. And I did not want to be the first not to sign that pole. So when I signed that pole and I walked across the stage at Thompson-Boling Arena, that surpassed anything I had accomplished up to that point. It was to sign that pole, and it was to be the best student-athlete. That was a highlight of my career.
DBNJ: Same thing with the Olympics. What do you remember when someone says “the 1988 Olympic Games?”
BG: Oh my gosh. That’s hard. To come together and gel the way that we did — because those other 11 girls were my enemies when we played against them in college. I’m trying to take their heart out. But for us to come together in such a short period of time for a common goal, to win the gold medal, it was so awesome. At that point, it wasn’t about the University of Tennessee. My best friend, Teresa Weatherspoon, Louisiana Tech University. It wasn’t about Katrina McClain and Teresa Edwards and the University of Georgia. It was about the United States of America. That’s the first time that I know that all of the different universities were cheering me on instead of booing me. They were actually cheering for me because we were representing the USA. It goes to show today how strong we are. Everybody loves to hate us. I was so proud, and I still remember the Whitney Houston song, “One Moment in Time.” That was my one moment in time, and I’ll never, never, ever forget that.
DBNJ: What do you remember about being a founding member of the WNBA and those early days of the league?
BG: I remember the eight teams. We were just trying to keep our head above water. It was so early on in the stages. Some of the things we were fighting for then, we’re fighting for now. We wanted to travel on the private planes. We didn’t want to have to travel with everybody else on commercial flights. We wanted to have charter flights. 
But what I see is the platform that the game is on. The fact that you have young boys as well as major leagues, NBA, MLB players watching and at courtside. That lets you know where the game has evolved. All the stars always come out and support. That’s a huge, huge gain for the game, when you can have so many different people and you can have men that are enjoying women playing basketball, and not just watching and enjoying but respecting the game. People were always wanting to compare: “Well, y’all don’t dunk!” Well, it’s like apples and oranges. They’re fruit, but they’re different. Boys, girls, men, women — we’re different. So it’s so good to see us get the respect we’re so deserving of, because we’re very, very fundamentally sound, and everybody likes that.
DBNJ: Did you always see yourself becoming a coach when you were finished playing?
BG: I did. I knew at an early age my thing was to empower young people. I had a gift. Young people always just attracted to me for whatever reason, working Pat Summitt camps when I was at school every year. Again, I’m going back to the dorms. I’m one of the dorm moms because all the kids loved me. I’m getting all the gifts, whether it was my favorite gummy, parents bringing it up or saying, “Come on to Pigeon Forge, and come hang out!” So I knew that was my gift, empowering young people.
My slogan now is, “Empowered women empower women.” That’s what I need to look at because we, as women, have a tendency not to stay together. But that’s me. I want to empower not just young people, but I want to empower women because I’m an empowered woman.
DBNJ: After 20 years as an assistant, what do you like best about being at FAMU and having a head coach role?
BG: It gives me the opportunity to be in control of everything from a day-to-day option. I always was known, as the recruiting coordinator, as a bridge. I was a players’ coach. I never thought I could do that, and shame on me because that’s what Pat was great at. Pat Summitt was so great at doing that. I just never thought I could be a head coach and do that. As I get older in my life and in basketball, I finally wanted to be a head coach where I could be in control, and I wanted to be somewhere permanent. I wanted to have something not temporary but long-term. I thought, being the lead and being the head, I could do that. I find myself still watching that young lady come in as a freshman, as a sophomore, and watching them develop. 
Today, in time, they’re so different. I like to tell them, because everybody keeps promising young people — not just the women, but the men — you’re going to go pro. We’re not doing any good telling them that. If we go and look at numbers, the NBA has been in existence for over 75 years and there have only been roughly 5,000 pros. So everybody is not going pro. 
I like to tell my young ladies, “You may not go pro in basketball, but you’re going to go pro in something, whether you’re going to be the next lawyer, whether you’re going to be the next judge, whether you’re going to be another VP. Whatever it is, you’re going to go pro in that.” I wanted to instill in them the life skills. I want to not just win on the court. I want to win in life.

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