Sonia Raman

Some Lesser Known Facts About Sonia Raman

• Her parents were born in India. After completing their studies, they moved to the United States.

• Her mother is from Nagpur, and her father is from Chennai.

• As a child, Sonia Raman attended tennis, badminton, skating, karate, and table tennis classes.

• In fifth grade, her physical education teacher included her in a basketball game during sports class, which made her start liking the game.

• In 1992, Sonia Raman started studying at Tufts University, where she joined the Tufts basketball team as a walk-on player.

• She was not chosen to play basketball in advance. She played as a guard.

  

• In her third year, Sonia Raman broke her leg after being hit by a car and could not play. During this time, she started learning more about coaching and helped her teammates from the side.

• Once, during a media conversation, she shared her journey of becoming a coach. She said,
  

  I was never the most talented player on my team, so my value always had to be being prepared and being a great teammate.”

  Sonia Raman added in the same conversation that while feeling sidelined, she relied on those qualities. She said,

  I was trying to help the team by encouraging my teammates and also starting to really study the game more.”

• In her final year, she became one of the team captains.

• After completing her law education, Sonia Raman worked at Fidelity Investments and for the United States Department of Labour for some time.​

• After that, she started working as an assistant coach at the college level at Tufts University. She served in the position for two years.​

• Sonia Raman then worked for six years as an assistant coach at Wellesley College.​

• On 9 July 2008, she became the head coach of the MIT Engineers women’s basketball team.​

  

• On 11 September 2020, she began working as an assistant coach at the Memphis Grizzlies in the NBA.

• That same year, she appeared as a guest on the YouTube talk show Patel & Kumar.

• Sonia Raman then became the first Indian-American woman and the 14th woman coach ever to be named an NBA coach.​

  

• She met Rich Cho, vice president of an American professional basketball team, the Memphis Grizzlies, after he contacted her while looking for student intern recommendations.​

• The Memphis Grizzlies’ head coach, Taylor Jenkins, was impressed by Raman and hired her.

• At the Grizzlies, Sonia Raman did scouting, helped with player development, and worked with analytics.​

• In 2024, she was replaced on the Grizzlies coaching staff.

• In 2025, Sonia Raman joined the coaching staff of the New York Liberty, a WNBA team.