Meet the NBA’s first female coach Natalie Nakase. Well, not yet.

The beach is where Natalie Nakase is sweating through a Navy SEAL workout with Billy Knight and Earl Watson. The trio attended UCLA together a decade ago, playing basketball for the Bruins. Now, during an afternoon session in Santa Monica beneath the blazing summer sun, they are shuffling and backpedaling and straining on the constantly shifting sand.

A few minutes into their session, a man bikes past and eyes them, craning his neck to get a better look at the unusual scene: two strong, tall, black men crawling on the beach alongside a small, fit, Asian woman. “We always draw a few stares,” Nakase says with a laugh. “I guess people don’t see this every day.”

Nakase has spent the past few years coaching professional basketball overseas — coaching men who tower over her — and the 32-year-old California native earns a living in the offseason by training kids and college players. She doesn’t have to be here today, submitting to this torture with Watson, a veteran NBA point guard, and Knight, a shooting guard who plays abroad. But all three friends are chasing something, an intangible edge that comes with pushing the limits.

Which is why Nakase is dragging a 15-pound weight bag through the sand between four orange cones about 20 yards apart, pausing at each one to do 20 soldierlike pushups. After she finishes…

via ESPN – Dream Role – E-ticket.