The majority of NBA athletes who come from basketball families typically have that connection through their fathers. For Terance Mann, that connection is through his mother, Daynia La-Force. She wasn’t just a basketball mom but also his coach during his adolescent years. That relationship played an integral role in shaping the player he became.
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Daynia’s love for the game began as a player. Her talent earned her a Division I scholarship to play at Georgetown, where she stayed for four years. Once her collegiate career ended, she immediately transitioned into coaching as an assistant at LIU Brooklyn.
She gave birth to Terance a year later in 1996. However, that didn’t stop her from continuing to pursue her dream. In 2005, the University of New Haven gave Daynia her first head coaching opportunity. She then accepted a position at Northeastern, where she coached from 2006 to 2014. Her final college head coaching stop was at Rhode Island, where she led the Rams from 2014 to 2019, before finally earning the recognition of a professional team in the Atlanta Dream. Shortly after Terance made his NBA debut in 2019, Daynia joined the Dream as an assistant coach in 2020.
Basketball was at the center of Daynia’s core as a person. However, Mann feels that it never came in the way of her being a great mother. “My mom, she’s more mom,” Mann said on the Straight to Cam podcast. “She doesn’t try to coach me or anything.”
Of course, Daynia was very present throughout Terance’s basketball journey, but she never became overbearing. She understood the value of letting him make mistakes and learn on his own. Terance would even question her at times because she rarely took a hands-on coaching approach. “Sometimes I’d be like, ‘Do you coach?’ She’s just a lot more mom than coach,” Mann revealed.
Still, Daynia has always had the ex-Los Angeles Clippers guard’s best interests at heart. And when needed, she doesn’t hesitate to step out of the mother role. “She keeps it real with me, which is very nice,” Mann said.
Terance and his mother have been able to grow their bond immensely through basketball. Daynia never wanted to force the sport on him. But his love for the game just came naturally.
“He was pretty much born on a court, and raised on a court,” La-Force said in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel. “He’s learned everything from being on a basketball court, everything about life.”
The Atlanta Hawks recently traded Mann to his hometown Brooklyn Nets, the same city where Daynia began her coaching career. The journey has come full circle for the Mann family, and Terance is ready to make the most of the opportunity.
