Sydney Johnson ’97 Is Coaching the WNBA’s Washington Mystics

In December, the WNBA’s Washington Mystics announced the hiring of Sydney Johnson ’97 as the team’s new head coach. Johnson tells PAW he wants Washington to be a “home” for players’ whole selves. 

“Yes, bring your ferocity, bring your strength, bring your competitiveness,” he says. “But also bring your interests, your passions away from the court, the loves of your life, the people that you look after, your background.”

Johnson’s path to a top job in the WNBA wasn’t the one you’d expect. After graduating from Princeton, he played professionally in Europe for seven years. 

A call from John Thompson III ’88, who had just landed the head coaching position for Georgetown men’s basketball team, compelled Johnson to coach. Thompson had served as an assistant coach at Princeton under the legendary Pete Carril, overlapping with Johnson’s time as a player. Thompson then served in Princeton’s top spot from 2000-04 before taking the Georgetown gig. Joe Scott ’87 took over for the Tigers, and Johnson headed to Washington. 

“That’s what was motivating me to get into coaching… [Carril and Thompson] were like father figures to me, and I want to have some kind of impact in a similar way for other athletes,” Johnson says.

At Georgetown, Thompson and Johnson ran a Princeton-style offense. When Scott left Princeton, Johnson took over the role in 2007. Johnson called the decision “a no brainer.”

“I love Princeton and what Coach Carril established, and in many ways, frankly… we’re all trying to live up to [it],” he says. 

Johnson left Princeton in 2011 when he took the head job at Fairfield. There he really started to lean into the fast style of play that would characterize the latter part of his career — Johnson’s Fairfield teams called themselves “the Running Stags” and ultimately became one of the fastest teams in the country.

Johnson parted ways Fairfield after eight years and served as a USA Basketball scout for the February 2020 FIBA AmeriCup team. The next year, he completed a one-year stint as an assistant coach on Scott’s Air Force team.

Johnson made his debut in 3x3 basketball in 2023 coaching USA 3x3 Men’s Under 23 Nations League team. The game is characterized by its lightning-fast pace. Since there are just three players on each team, the floor is less crowded and there is — generally speaking — more room to make shots. Johnson says that the game’s emphasis on speed was a “thread” along his entire coaching journey.

“It’s almost like it’s always been in me and just been pulled out in different stops along the way,” he says. 

Johnson’s big break came when he coached the 3x3 Men’s Under 23 world cup team in Lublin, Poland, where they won gold. He continued to expand his profile in the sport, serving as an assistant coach for the 2025 AmeriCup Qualifying Team and coaching USA Basketball’s 3x3 National Team development camp for women. 

Johnson got his feet wet in the WNBA serving as an assistant on the coaching staff of the Chicago Sky for the 2024 season, working under Teresa Witherspoon. But the Sky parted ways with Witherspoon and her staff. Johnson landed the Mystics’ top job in December and was formally introduced in a February press conference. 

For Princetonians interested in coaching, Johnson says it’s most important to “learn and listen.” But it’s his admiration for Carril that he continues to touch on, emphasizing his influence on Johnson’s own coaching career. 

“He was extremely demanding and also brilliant. And what he did is, he forced a brotherhood of teammates,” Johnson says. “And so we feel like we have this responsibility to just kind of give back and this joy of being around each other… And I’m guessing a lot of the people who read any of these comments will be feeling the same way.”