(DES MOINES, Iowa—March 10, 2025) The Robert D. and Billie Ray Center at Drake University and the Excellence with Integrity Institute are proud to announce an extended partnership with NCAA Women’s Basketball and the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA). The partnership will help coaches create a positive team culture that empowers leadership development.
The project is focused on providing state-of-the-art practices for shaping team culture. These resources focus on teamwork, inclusion, and passion and were initially created by The Ray Center and The Excellence with Integrity Institute to support the NCAA WBB Strategic Plan. The resources were showcased at recent WBCA Conventions and received enthusiastic feedback. The partnership with the WBCA includes enhanced resources for WBCA coaches at all levels that will have access to the new resources through the WBCA web-portal.
“Coaches of women’s and girls’ basketball live daily the ideals of teamwork, inclusion and passion which are the focus of the TIP program developed by The Ray Center at Drake University and the Excellence with Integrity Institution,” said WBCA Executive Director Danielle Donehew. “The WBCA is pleased to enter into a partnership with these two organizations to offer this program and its resources to our members for the betterment of their student-athletes and themselves.”
“We are eager to work with the WBCA to provide coaches with new leadership development tools,” said Scott Raecker, executive director of The Ray Center. “Their commitment to building teamwork, inclusion, and passion is a great example for all of those who work with student-athletes.”
“This collaboration with the WBCA is an incredible opportunity to advance the efforts of women’s basketball coaches to develop leadership, culture, and character,” said Matt Davidson, Ph.D., president of the Institute for Excellence and Ethics. “The partnership will take the applied work of strengthening team culture to a whole new level and ensure that women’s basketball coaches at every level can achieve excellence with integrity.”
WBCA Coaches will be introduced to the new resources at the WBCA Convention, held in conjunction with the 2025 NCAA Women’s Final Four.
The TIP Team Culture Practices have been made possible through generous philanthropic gifts from Suzie Glazer Burt and Sandy Hatfield Clubb who believe in the importance of women empowering women for success.
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About the WBCA
The Women’s Basketball Coaches Association is the professional association for coaches of women’s and girls’ basketball at all levels of competition. Founded in 1981, the WBCA offers educational resources that coaches need to help make themselves better leaders, teachers and mentors to their players; provides opportunities for coaches to connect with peers in the profession; serves as the unifying voice of a diverse community of coaches to the organizations that control the game; and celebrates those coaches, players and other individuals who excel each year and contribute to the advancement of the sport. Visit WBCA.org for more details about the association.
About The Ray Center
Through public awareness and programming grounded in research, The Ray Center helps create strong, vibrant communities that value positive, healthy relationships and respectful behavior. Our initiatives benefit people of all ages and are easily adaptable for families, schools, workplaces, athletic teams, and more.
We help our clients shape their organization’s culture through professional development, assessments, resources, and on-going consultation that focuses on values-based education and best practices in character development.
About EWI
The Excellence with Integrity Institute (formerly, Institute for Excellence & Ethics) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to achieving excellence with integrity. We design and implement assessment strategies, deliver targeted professional development, and develop instructional resources to guide organizations through the intricacies and hurdles of continuous self-reflection and improvement. Simply put, we help organizations become the best they can be.