We Are the Leaders, Issue #13, Kathy Delaney-Smith

by BREAKTHRU Team

January 30th, 2026

Dear Leaders,

This past week I traveled to Westwood, Massachusetts, for an oversold book signing for someone who sits at the very root of BREAKTHRU: our first client, our earliest proof, and one of the most formative leadership teachers Laura and I have ever known, Kathy Delaney-Smith. (Beware: I have lots of material.)

Some people may know Kathy through a highlight reel that is played every March Madness, as the coach of the first team to win a #16 seed over a #1 seed in NCAA history (Harvard vs Stanford). Many may not know that she is also the ALL-TIME winningest coach in Ivy League history for both male and female programs. But if you’ve read her book, Grit and Wit, the one we had the honor of helping bring into the world, you know the wins are only the surface story. What lives underneath is far more instructive: how to lead and win when the system isn’t built for you, and how to carry an entire generation forward without asking them to absorb the cost of inequity.

Kathy wasn’t my college coach, but she brought me in as one of hers. Kathy does that; she claims people. She’s unconventional and a little wild, and one of her favorite moves is to ask a deeply personal question almost immediately. The kind that makes you pause, laugh nervously, and realize you’re not getting away with small talk.

She carries a presence that fills any room. Loud (she will deny it, but she yells – a lot), sharp but consistently self-deprecating, funny and relentless, deeply loyal and unafraid to be critical when it matters. She is always unmistakably herself. And somehow, maybe because of that personality, not in spite of it, she’s someone everyone wants to be around.

How does she fight so hard, so consistently — and why does she fight so hard?

The book and our work with her for the last five years gave us glimpses of the answer. But Legends tend to keep some things close to the chest, even as they invite the rest of us to open ours. The thing I know is this: Kathy is a force we can all learn from.

This Week’s Reflection: The Power of the Legend, Amplified by the Protector

In the BREAKTHRU framework, Legends are motivated by redemption and by a deep, often unspoken belief that if something is going to change, it may have to be them. They set the bar high, not to intimidate, but to prove what’s possible.

They refuse to lower standards just because the world expects less.
They build culture through repetition, discipline, and truth-telling.
They don’t ask for permission to be excellent.

But here’s what’s often missed: Legends don’t just demand excellence. They embody it.

Kathy Delaney-Smith is a Legend, yes, and at her best, her leadership has always been powered by the Protector. By the trust she built. By the part of her that could not tolerate unfairness. By the instinct to fight battles quietly so others didn’t have to. By a deep commitment to care for her players and make sure they were safe, resourced, and seen.

You can trace that Protector instinct all the way back to where she came from.

Kathy grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, one of six children in a family shaped by fierce expectations and deep care. Her mother, Peg Delaney, who I believe was her greatest teacher, coached her at Sacred Heart High School, where Kathy became the first female basketball player in Massachusetts to score more than 1,000 points. Her oldest sister had Down Syndrome, and that never softened Peg’s expectations, it sharpened them. Fairness was not optional in their house. Dignity was non-negotiable.

Kathy loved swimming, ice skating, and six-on-six basketball in an era before Title IX opened doors the way we now assume they’ve always existed. When she went to college, there wasn’t even a varsity women’s basketball team.

So she pivoted.

She pursued synchronized swimming at Bridgewater State, not because it was her first love, but because the opportunity to play basketball simply didn’t exist yet in the way it did for the boys. Adaptation wasn’t a compromise; it was survival.

After graduating, she applied for a job as a PE teacher and swim coach in Westwood. During the interview, the superintendent asked if she could also coach basketball and win. Her answer was immediate: “Of course I can.”

She didn’t yet know the five-on-five game well.
But she believed in herself.
And she believed she could learn it through discipline and work.

Within a few short years, her teams at Westwood became dominant, winning consistently and establishing a standard that couldn’t be ignored. But what mattered far more than the record was how she won: she set expectations, demanded seriousness, and modeled what it meant to act as if you already belonged, a philosophy she later carried with her to Harvard. (If you haven’t seen the documentary Act As If, it’s well worth your time.)

The Part We Don’t Talk About Enough: The Toll of Fighting for Equity

Kathy writes openly about how much equity work she did quietly, strategically, because she refused to let her players carry the burden of asking for what the boys were simply handed.

When Title IX passed, she used it. Repeatedly. She filed complaints about practice times, uniforms, assistant coaches, travel, facilities, and salaries after being told “no” again and again. She was warned it would hurt her professionally. Athletic directors didn’t like her. One told her flat-out, “You’re never going to make it.”

She kept going anyway.

And if you want to understand Protector energy, read the locker room incident.

The girls returned from an away game, sweaty, exhausted, and were told they couldn’t enter their own locker room because it had been given to the visiting boys’ JV team. Kathy gathered her team and said, “We’re going in.”

She wasn’t creating drama. She was correcting a system that had grown comfortable with disrespect.

This is the part of equity work people love to celebrate in hindsight, but rarely want to live through in real time. Because it’s exhausting. It’s lonely. And it requires being “a thorn” over and over just to get to what should have been baseline in the first place.

Why This Matters Now

As I spent time with Kathy this week, meeting former players who are now retired and reflective, something kept echoing for me: who is doing this work now?

Has the urgency faded because the gains feel permanent?

Kathy worries that much of what she fought for could disappear — that what we take for granted can quietly slide away. That isn’t pessimism. It’s the clarity of someone who has watched rights expand and contract within a single lifetime.

That’s why she calls her book what it is: a baton. “This book is the baton I am passing on to you.”

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: we are now the adults in the room.

For me, this is the reason for our work at BREAKTHRU. Leadership development should be accessible to everyone — not just the chosen few with credentials and access. Even in Oak Park, we’re coaching our girls. We’re building teams. We’re shaping what they learn to expect, and what they learn not to tolerate.

And Title IX violations? They don’t just happen “elsewhere.” They happen quietly, everywhere: uneven gym time, uneven travel, uneven uniforms, uneven attention, uneven investment. Equity doesn’t usually disappear all at once.

It erodes when people stop watching.

(And yes — even now, I’m preparing to submit a Title IX complaint for our middle school athletic programs. Wish me luck.)

A Leadership Types Lens: Legend + Protector

Kathy’s Legend energy created a standard so high it changed lives. But it’s her Protector amplifier that explains why her leadership was so successful:

Protecting players from distraction while she fought behind the scenes.
Protecting girls from being told they must “earn” what boys receive by default.
Protecting the truth that excellence in women’s sports is not charity — it’s a right.

She built something that lasted. Now it’s our job to make sure it doesn’t slide backward. As Kathy would say:

“GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS”

From Reflection to Action

As you move through this week, sit with these questions:

What is my Leadership Type and Amplifier and how can I lean into that to be a better leader? Find out here.
In what areas of my life can I “Act As If”?
In my own life, where might girls and women still be quietly asked to tolerate less — time, space, funding, respect — because no one wants to be “difficult”?

Because the most honoring thing we can do with a baton isn’t to frame it, praise it, or post about it. It’s to carry it.