Published on Show Me Mizzou Sept. 16, 2025
Story by Alex Schiffer, BJ ’17
Eric Thibault went to Mizzou to be a journalist. He wound up being a WNBA head coach.
Thibault, BA ’09, is the son of former NBA assistant and WNBA head coach Mike Thibault, who got his start as an assistant on Magic Johnson’s Lakers and later helped draft Michael Jordan. While living in Connecticut, the younger Thibault gravitated to reporting and committed to Mizzou for journalism without any thought of being a coach.
“I had done the typical high school journalism stuff,” Thibault says. “Wrote for the school paper, was an editor for the school paper.” A student TV morning show offered broadcast journalism experience. He loved to write and hoped to land in sports media.
As a student, Thibault, who played guard in high school, served as a practice player for the Mizzou women’s basketball team under then-head coach Cindy Stein. He helped the Tiger squad prepare for games by impersonating some of the Big 12’s best players. It was a life-altering decision.
“I always loved being around a team, and I think that probably is, not coincidentally, what I ended up doing with my career,” Thibault says.
Between semesters, he’d hop on a plane to serve as a practice player for the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun, where his dad was head coach. At Mizzou, Thibault switched his major from journalism as he set his sights on coaching.
After graduation, he stayed in the women’s game, working in various capacities at St. John’s University and Virginia Commonwealth University before moving to the Washington Mystics, where he was an assistant coach. Named Mystics head coach in 2023, he helmed the team for two seasons. He’s now associate head coach of the Minnesota Lynx.
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