Winthrop head women’s basketball coach Semeka Randall-Lay vividly remembers her first experience with basketball.
At the age of six back in her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, she found herself “playing house” with her neighbor’s three daughters. That family also had two sons who liked to play basketball.
“The guys would be playing basketball and I just was way more interested in what they were doing,” Randall-Lay said. “So one day I got up the courage to ask if I could play, not knowing what I was doing. They were playing what we would call back in the day ‘Around the World.’”
It was this initial spark of curiosity that would fuel a lifelong journey with the game of basketball.
Randall-Lay played her first organized hoops in the seventh grade. She easily made the cut but did so without her mother knowing.
A few games into the season Randall-Lay was dropped off at home by a security guard. Before leaving, the guard told Randall-Lay’s mother, “Hey, you should come watch your daughter play. She’s a really good basketball player.”
“I don’t have time to go watch her play basketball. Is she good?” her mother asked.
The guard responded with “She ain’t good. She’s really really good.”
Randall-Lay’s mother did eventually come to one of her daughter’s games that season, and it was an experience she’ll never forget.
“I was like ‘oh I gotta show out for my mom.’ And I’ll never forget, like I stole the ball three times in a row and my mom stands up and goes ‘Semeka that’s unladylike! Could you please give her the ball back?’ The security guard tapped on her shoulder and said, ‘Ma’am that’s the whole object of the game.’ She was like ‘Really? Well, what kind of game is this?”
Despite her mother’s initial disapproval of the sport, it meant everything to Randall-Lay for her mother to see her play.
She was raised by a single mother, and says they didn’t get to spend much time together.
Randall-Lay attended Trinity High School. There, she became a name on the national stage being named Miss Basketball for the state of Ohio for her junior and senior seasons. She was also named a WBCA All-American and won two state championships during her time at Trinity.
Randall-Lay remembers losing right before reaching the title game her senior year of high school.
“The team that beat me came knocking on our locker room door. I was crying and they were like ‘Can you come in and sign autographs for us?’ So I had to leave my locker room and go sign autographs for them,” she said. “(I was) humbled that they respected me but I was hurting because I obviously wanted to win that championship.”
Randall-Lay helped the US win gold in 1997 at the U19 World Championships and in 1998 at the Jones Cup in Taiwan.
Randall-Lay is appreciative not only of the winning she did with USA Basketball but also for the life experience she gained.
“I’ll never forget walking the Great Wall in China, being in Czechoslovakia, hanging out with our teammates in Taiwan, just doing all kinds of cool things like that and it’s all through basketball.”
Randall-Lay’s time at The University of Tennessee would go down in basketball history.
Tennessee Women’s Basketball came off winning two straight national titles in 1996 and 1997. Chamique Holdsclaw led their roster. She was named a Kodak all-american the two seasons prior to Randall-Lay’s arrival.
This group obliterated college basketball during Randall-Lay’s freshman season and finished 39-0 on the way to winning Tennessee’s third consecutive national championship in 1998.
“(Coach Summit) always kept us humble, and again, we just loved competing. Every time we put on our shoes we’re like “Yo, we gotta go get this man. We gotta get it.”
Randall-Lay entered the 2001 WNBA draft. She was selected with the seventeenth pick by the Seattle Storm, although her name was called later than she thought it’d be.
“I was wigging out because I was told I was gonna go in the first round. So I’m like, ‘Wait. I knew I was gonna go late in the first round. What tripped us up?’” she questioned. Her agent at the time had no answer.
Not being selected in the first round filled Randall-Lay with anxiety.
“So much so that I missed my name being called when I was the first pick of the second round! I was like ‘What? What? I’m actually good now!’ So, the emotions of the draft were definitely there.”
Randall played four seasons in the WNBA before retiring at the conclusion of the 2004 season. In her last game playing for the San Antonio Silver Stars she recorded eight steals against the Charlotte Sting, which is a franchise record.
Sting all-star point guard Dawn Staley was not expecting Randall-Lay’s defensive aggression that night.
“Dawn was yelling at me. She’s like Meek. Why are you pressuring me so far? I was like, ‘Hey Dawn, this is my last game so I gotta go out so I’m gonna have to steal the ball from you a couple times,’” she said.
Randall-Lay’s career as a coach began then.
She started at Michigan State where she was hired as an assistant to Joanne P. McCallie’s staff. The 2005 Spartan’s women’s basketball team made it all the way to the national title game that season.
Randall-Lay made five stops in her coaching career before reaching Winthrop in 2019 as associate head coach.
Randall-Lay is in her third season coaching Winthrop’s women’s basketball team. In reference to how her previous coaching stops have helped lead her to where she is now she had one thing to say.
“I wouldn’t trade any of those experiences for anything.”
