Boston Celtic head coach Brad Stevens and Tracy Stevens visit Cole at Boston Children’s Hospital in 2016. (Getty)
Basketball has always been in Brad Stevens‘ blood.
From being one of the stars on DePauw University’s basketball team, to when he became Butler University’s head coach, to taking a leap into the NBA and becoming the head coach of the Boston Celtics, the sport has shaped his life.
Through all the years of uncertainty and triumph, Stevens now finds himself at the biggest point of his career. The coach and his Celtics, the No. 1-seeded team in the Eastern Conference, are in the Eastern Conference semi-finals of the NBA Playoffs against the Washington Wizards
Over the last 15 years, Stevens has been joined by a familiar face in the stands: his wife, Tracy.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Brad & Tracy Met In College & Got Married In 2003
Brad and Tracy Stevens and their two children. (Life of Dad)
Tracy Wilhelmy and Stevens met when they were both freshmen DePauw in Greencastle, Indiana. They both graduated in 1999 from the school.
After years of dating, the couple finally tied the knot in August 2003. They have two children together, 11-year old Brady and 7-year old Kinsley.
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In an interview with Life of Dad, Brad compared being the Celtics’ coach to being a father in a sense that he puts forth his best effort on the sidelines the same way he does at home.
You want to put your signature on this job. You want to do the very best you can. You want the people that you are working with to feel like you are invested in them and that you are putting a lot time and thought into them. You want to do that with your own children. You want them to know that you are doing everything you can to help them have a great next day.
Brad said in the same interview that the biggest things he tries to instill in his children at their young ages is to be kind and do right.
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2. Tracy Got Her Law Degree If Things Didn’t Work Out for Brad
Brad Stevens (Getty)
A few years after graduating from DePauw, Tracy decided to go back to school to pursue a law degree. She did so to try and support the couple when Brad took a volunteer position at Butler and his future was uncertain.
She graduated from Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland and became an attorney. She specialized in contract and labor law and worked at Indianapolis-based Bingham Greenebaum Doll LLP. After Kinsley’s birth, she left the firm “to run the household so Brad can focus on coaching,” DePauw’s alumni newsletter wrote.
When Brad was hired by the Celtics she was actually the one that negotiated his contract, the Indianapolis Star reported shortly after he was officially announced as the coach.
Brad uses a group to do his speaking and marketing deals, but I do his contracts. I was a labor and employment attorney so looking at a contract is exactly what I was trained to do. This was not like a grueling negotiation. It was a conversation mostly between Brad and Danny Ainge, but I had a few conversations with their general counsel about a couple of technical points.
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3. Tracy Was the One to Tell Brad to ‘Go For’ a Job At Butler
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When Stevens graduated from DePauw, he started his career at Eli Lilly and Company, a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Indianapolis. In 2000 while dating Tracy, he informed her about the job offer he had just received from Butler to work in its basketball office on a volunteer basis.
Knowing how important it was to Brad, Tracy reportedly ran the idea over in her head for “about two hours” before ultimately telling him to pursue the opportunity.
“That’s the only time I ever questioned it,” Cleveland.com wrote in 2010. “It was so obvious to me that this was his passion and this was going to make him happy. And then that was the end of it. I loved him.”
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4. Tracy Played Soccer at DePauw
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Before attending DePauw, Tracy went to Rocky River High School in Ohio.
While Brad pursued his degree in economics at DePauw, Tracy was a political science double major and played on the school’s soccer team. She was the captain of the team as a senior and was a member of the first-ever Tigers team to make the Division III NCAA tournament.
The Tigers women’s soccer program has appeared in the NCAA tournament seven times since then.
In 2014, Tracy was named to serve as a trustee at Butler and was also the president of the school’s Alumni Association Board of Directors.
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5. Tracy’s Mother Died of Cancer In 2004
Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens and Tracy Stevens visit Alyssa and Mom at Boston Children’s Hospital in 2016. (Getty)
One of the reasons that Tracy decided to go to law school in Cleveland was because her mother, Mary Kay, had been diagnosed with cancer and lived close to the university. She received a law degree in 2003 and married Brad a few months later.
Just about one year after that, Kay died of the disease.
Partly because of the circumstances, Brad and Tracy became involved with the American Cancer Society’s Coaches Vs. Cancer program, which empowers collegiate coaches and their teams to help funding and awareness for cancer research.
At an event for the program in 2010 one day before the NCAA Final Four, Brad and his wife attended an event in Indianapolis. Tracy said to Fox 59 that the specific event “has been a grounding source for us reminding us there are things more important than a basketball game. We remember people we love and celebrate survivors who are also here tonight.”
Tickets for the event were sold out and it raised $45,000 for the cause.
In addition to working with the American Cancer Society, Brad and his wife have volunteered for the Jukes Foundation for Kids, which benefits children.
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When former Butler player Andrew Smith was dying of cancer, Brad took a leave of absence in January 2016 to visit him in the hospital. Smith died one week after that, and his former coach was the one to deliver the emotional eulogy at the funeral.
Tracy also serves on the board of advisors of the Greater Boston Food Bank.
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Chris Bucher is a sports, politics and general news contributor to Heavy. A University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh graduate, Bucher spent time as the business editor at The Waukesha Freeman and was also the former sports assistant editor. You can follow him on Twitter @Buchage and reach him at chris.bucher@heavy.com.April 30, 2017 9:44 pm
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