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In March 2025, the Arizona State women’s basketball team were looking for a coach who could end a drought that had seen them go without a NCAA Tournament appearance – or even a winning season – since 2019-20.
The choice was Molly Miller, a proven and successful head coach at Grand Canyon. Miller had led the Lopes to their first NCAA Tournament appearance and a 32–3 record in her final season with the team – a benchmark for the program and an important accomplishment within the broader scope of college basketball. She soon turned around Arizona State, leading them to a 24-11 record and a first appearance at the NCAA Tournament in six years. (Their season ended in the First Four.)
But the discourse around Miller’s hiring extended beyond her credentials. Miller is blond and petite, a conventionally “all-American” attractive woman. From there, the conversation blurred. Fans focused on a common trope projected on to women in sports; the discussion shifted towards her looks, rather than the records she has broken, and the job she was hired to do.
One TikTok on her appointment praised her as “one of the best basketball coaches to ever walk the Earth” before noting she “is a beautiful woman … I hate saying it, but if you know anything about Arizona State, you go because it’s beautiful. If you know, you know.”
Another TikTok, with more than 300,000 views, appears when you type in the name “Molly Miller” on the app. The caption reads: “Molly Miller isn’t going viral because of her coaching.”
In the video, user CFBChuck, who covers college sports on his page, catalogs her accomplishments before he pivots with a “but”. He adds: “Arizona State’s biggest selling point: big party school, beautiful women.” The comments section includes observations such as “she’s so hot,” and “so she’s a D.E.I hire, got it.”
This is nothing new in basketball – and sports more broadly – where women have long been evaluated on their looks, often as an assumed extension of their professional roles. From the formation of the WNBA, where marketing campaigns pushed a “straight girl next door” image, intertwined with overt sexualization, to today, the pattern has been consistently reductive. When Miller’s achievements are met with a “but …,” it suggests that merit alone is inadequate, that her accomplishments, no matter how substantial, are measured against the narrow standard of physical attractiveness. In spite of a career defined by tangible success, Miller’s worth is still implicitly weighed more heavily towards her appearance than the impact she has made.
A compliment here or there about Miller’s looks is unsurprising, but the broader pattern tells a different story. Whether it’s a player like Paige Bueckers being targeted with sexualized TikTok edits or stalked online, or a journalist like Taylor Rooks being memefied as if her rapport with NBA players exists solely because they find her attractive, the message is clear. These women are denied the credit of their own professional merit, their success instead repackaged as a performance for male consumption.
Misogyny, misogynoir and objectification waste women’s time. Instead of being allowed to thrive, organizations like the NCAA, WNBA and NWSL are stymied by pervasive narratives that question women’s legitimacy. Online commentary from men insisting that women should not advocate for higher salaries because their leagues are allegedly less profitable or entertaining exemplifies this obstruction. Women are then trapped in a cycle of constant negotiation, explanation and self-validation. They must repeatedly demonstrate their competence rather than simply do their jobs.
This distraction is not incidental; it is intentional. It reinforces a narrative that undermines and diminishes women’s rightful place in sports, delaying the acknowledgment that they are fully capable of performing their roles. Misogyny, in all its forms, is not merely a personal burden; it is a systemic structure designed to stall progress, dilute power and keep women defending their very existence, rather than allow them to advance on the merit of their work.
Rooks addressed this dynamic on a recent podcast with Lou Williams and Spank Horton. She was forced to assert that, despite the sexualized attention she receives, her looks have not influenced her work – a statement prompted by repeated suggestions that she secures the “best interviews” with NBA players because of her “pretty privilege”.
Rooks hit back. “To minimize somebody’s skill or capabilities or talent to the fact that they maybe look good to you is such a disservice to all the work they have put in,” Rooks said. “And to think that all it takes to be in this space is to be attractive is also just incredibly disrespectful.”
Rooks is an Emmy nominee, has hosted NFL national coverage and worked as a studio host on Amazon Prime, achievements she built from a career that started when she was 18. Fifteen years later, she is still stuck fighting the assumption that her appearance dictated her success, forcing her to defend her legitimacy.
“What I always say to myself is like, people think I’m so good at the job, you have to think I’m cheating – like, oh, she’s only able to do this because she’s pretty,” she said on the podcast.
Rooks’s fight with legitimacy is one Miller must go through too. While sections of the internet have debated her looks, she guided a previously losing program back to the NCAA Tournament – an achievement that deserves the same viral energy the world gave her appearance. And yet, the coverage for this feat is not going as viral as the videos that have lusted over her and diminished her ability.
