Prestigious award
Teresa Resch receives honor from Augustana
A Jackson County Central graduate has received a prestigious honor from Augustana University.
Teresa Resch has been named a recipient of one of the school’s Alumni Achievement Awards, earning a Horizon Award. She was an all-North Central Conference volleyball selection for the Vikings.
Resch, who graduated from Augustana in 2004 and JCC in 2000, is vice president of basketball operations for the NBA’s Toronto Raptors.
The awards are presented to Augustana alumni who have made outstanding contributions to their fields of endeavor, communities and-or churches.
Horizon award winners are young alumni who have graduated within the last 15 years and quickly demonstrated outstanding vocational achievement and provided faithful service to their community and-or church.
Resch is responsible for team operations staff and a liaison between basketball and business operations.
After graduating from Augustana, she earned an MBA in sports administration from St. Thomas University in Florida. She began her career as an event intern at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex, and later served the NBA League Office in various roles, where she assisted in the operations of the Basketball Without Borders Camp, established the first camp to feature women campers and was involved in the expansion of NBA’s relationship with the U.S. Department of State’s SportsUnited Program.
Prior to joining the Raptors, Resch served as the Ultimate Hoops National Basketball Operations manager for LifeTime Fitness. She initially joined the Raptors as its director of basketball operations & player development.
Resch has played instrumental roles in overseeing plans for the team’s new practice facility, launching Raptors 905, its G-League affiliate, and transitioning the Raptors to Tampa, Florida, for the 2020-21 season.
She joined the Raptors in 2013, becoming the first woman to work in the organization in a non-support capacity, which made headlines at the time.
Her name is often mentioned as a candidate to be the first female General Manager in NBA history. That may still happen, but she also was in the running to become the first GM of an NHL team.
Resch interviewed with the Chicago Blackhawks in March about their GM position. The team eventually stuck with Kyle Davidson, who had held the position on an interim basis.
Teresa hopes society will get to a point where a woman joining a senior role within the NBA or other professional leagues will not be newsworthy. It will just be the norm.
“It was really overwhelming when I started in 2013,” she told Holly Droy of thefemalelead.com. “I knew there weren’t many women in these positions where you directly interact with the team. I had never worked for a team before, I didn’t know what I was doing, and I had a lot of imposter syndrome.
“Growing up, sport was always a big part of my life. I was from a very small town (Lakefield) with only 1,200 people. While I had the opportunity to play all sports in high school, there were no recruiters coming to my part of Minnesota. After leaving high school, I chose to play Division II college volleyball, and I realized my athletic career didn’t have to end.
“I studied Business Communications with a minor in Journalism. Then in my freshman year we hosted the Division II volleyball national championships, and I saw that there was an opportunity to work in sport without being a professional sports player. The industry was much bigger than playing on a court, and it opened my eyes to other opportunities.
“I then went to grad school in South Florida so I could intern and be exposed to the sports industry, and to get more real life experiences. One graduate internship I did was at ESPN Wide World of Sports, and one of the events I worked on was the NBA Draft Combine. Through that experience I met the basketball operations team from the New York office. They offered me an entry level position and I moved to New York, without ever having visited it!”
Resch’s job with the Raptors involves making sure anyone connected to the club has the resources necessary to compete at championship level; liaising between the business side of sports entertainment and the basketball team itself; and communicating externally what the team is doing and building the brand.
“If my teenage self could see me now, she wouldn’t be able to handle it,” Resch said. “Growing up I had a very narrow view of the world, so I think she would be very excited to see where I am now - I've travelled globally and been exposed to cultures and places I never knew existed, and met a lot of diverse and incredible people.”
Her role is also centered around the advancement of players and staff, by introducing pillars of wellness and organizational culture and inclusion into team operations. As a member of the NBA Global Inclusion Council, Teresa is particularly interested in the development of women in team operations and in coaching positions.
“Women are half of the world's population, so if you limit yourself to only men working in your team, then you’re missing out on half of the world’s potential. Creating equal opportunities for women provides a greater pool of talent. As women we bring a different perspective - there are characteristics of females that are beneficial to a group.
“We’re always looking for a new way to have an advantage against our competitors, so extending opportunities to half of the world is only going to help us get better.”
Teresa says there’s still a lot of work to be done in the NBA to make it more inclusive.
“There’s definitely a higher need for safety and security for women, so they feel a stronger sense of belonging in their position. That doesn’t exist in the industry at the moment. For women to move to the next level and break barriers in professional sports organizations, that needs to change. I’ve definitely seen more women who leave the industry, or who are hesitant to join, than men.
“Representation matters. We need more women working in public facing roles and we need to be telling their stories. There are still barriers that need to be broken for women. We’ll know we have crossed a threshold when a woman being hired at a senior level team is no longer headline news."
Teresa believes that girls and women of all ages need more support when it comes to the sporting industry. “As a society we have moved on hugely, in terms of girls playing sports not considered unusual. The cliff that happens in teenage years, where there’s a significant drop off of teens playing sport, is what we need to address.
“The biggest thing I would like to see change for women in the NBA over the next ten years, is for them to feel safe, secure, and that they can be their authentic selves in society, and know that they are valued and belong there.”