WNBA expansion team Toronto Tempo introduces Wright Rogers as first GM

Newly-named general manager Monica Wright Rogers (left) and Teresa Resch, president of the Toronto Tempo, pose with a basketball at a WNBA Toronto Tempo team announcement in Toronto, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston

TORONTO — Becoming a WNBA general manager has been a long time coming for Monica Wright Rogers.

Wright Rogers was officially unveiled Thursday as the GM of the expansion Toronto Tempo. It comes roughly a month after the 36-year-old San Antonio native was hired by the league's first-ever Canadian franchise.

Wright Rogers joins the Tempo following a career as a player — both collegiately and in the WNBA — two coaching stints (at Liberty and Virginia, her alma mater) and two seasons as an assistant GM with the Phoenix Mercury.

"I feel like a lot of my career I've been pointing to a position like this," Wright Rogers said. "Since picking up a ball and shooting my first WNBA basket, my passion for the W and what it's done for my life.

"I can't wait to give that back to this team and league."

Wright Rogers has the luxury of time as Toronto doesn't tip off until 2026. And while she's been tasked with building a basketball operations department from scratch, the two-time WNBA champion says immediate plans revolve around "listening and learning."

"I think this is such a unique sports city and I want to be thoughtful in how we operate in our inaugural season," she said. "I really want to tap in with some of the other teams' leaders and understand from them what's been successful, what hasn't in this city.

"That's probably top on my to-do list: just listening and learning."

The Tempo will play their home games at Coca-Cola Coliseum but also stage regular-season contests in Montreal and Vancouver.

Wright Rogers was selected second overall by the Minnesota Lynx in the 2010 WNBA draft and made the league's all-rookie team. She helped Minnesota win championships in 2011 and '13.

Wright Rogers was traded to the Seattle Storm in July 2015 but missed the remainder of that season with a knee injury. She returned to the court with the club in 2016, her final WNBA campaign.

Wright Rogers, who also played professionally in Turkey, Poland, South Korea, Australia and Iceland, served as an assistant coach at Liberty University (2018-19) before taking a similar post at Virginia (2019-21). As a coach, Wright Rogers said she made recruiting trips to Toronto.

"We could not find a better person than Monica to lead this team," Tempo president Teresa Resch said. "The biggest thing was to be able to have someone on board focused on free agency this year to understand what may happen and plan for next year.

"There's so many different things that impact basketball that I want to make sure we have enough runway to actually think about it deeply and make really good, strong hires. My philosophy is take a long time to make sure you hire the right person and I think I wanted to give my GM enough time to do that."

At Virginia, Wright Rogers was the ACC's player of the year, its top defensive player and a national defensive player of the year. And although Toronto has yet to hire a head coach or sign any players, Wright Rogers understands the importance of sound defence on the court.

"Whatever our identity is on the court will be a combination of what I believe in and what our future head coach believes in," she said. "But I think defence is something that wins championships and at the end of the day you really can't not have that in your on-court product.

"I believe in playing the game the right way . . . you'll see an up-tempo game and you'll see great-quality basketball played by great-quality players."

Wright Rogers plans to have a head coach in place come the WNBA expansion draft, which hasn't yet been scheduled. But Wright Rogers doesn't see starting an organization from the ground floor as a disadvantage.

"I think we'll have some advantages," she said. "The fact we're new the players will be able to step into this and really paint a picture of how they want this team to be on the court and they'll be the faces of it . . . there's a lot more advantages to being a new franchise than obstacles in my opinion."

Wright Rogers also left the door open to Canadian players being on Toronto's roster.

"I don't want to make any roster promises," she said. "But I will say I'm really excited about the talent Canada has in the WNBA and upcoming through those NCAA pipelines (and) national team pipelines.

"I think there's tremendous opportunity to get some of that talent in the future."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 20, 2024.

Dan Ralph, The Canadian Press