Athletics Strategist, Creative Coaching Visionary, and Impassioned Leader
Pioneering, forward-thinking and solution-focused, Celia Slater is a nationally-recognized leader committed to providing professional development opportunities for coaches of all sports interested in pursuing both excellence in their profession and bridging the gap toward gender equality for both coaches and players.
Celia’s core beliefs rest in the power of emotional investment in reaching one’s own “true north” to achieve the height of victory as a coach, not just in accolades, but by successfully understanding one’s self, being authentic, and communicating with one’s players to have a mutually-beneficial relationship.
Celia brings nearly 30 years of unmatched experience in college athletics as both an organizational head and a collegiate basketball coach, most recently serving as co-founder and executive director of both the NCAA Women Coaches Academy (WCA) and The Alliance of Women Coaches (The Alliance). The WCA started as a professional development program and, due largely to Celia’s efforts, soon exploded into a network of women coaches with an ever-growing grant to aid in expansion.
On the court, Celia most recently served at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida, as head women’s basketball coach and member of the First Year Experience Task Force. In her early days, Celia was a four-year scholarship athlete and named Most Valuable Player of the women’s basketball team during her senior year at Florida State University. Rounding out her academic experience, she earned her master’s degree in sports administration from the University of Northern Colorado.
