Sometimes doors have to be kicked open, and sometimes you just have to have the courage to walk through the open ones. 

That was the message delivered by national championship-winning coach and current ESPN analyst Carolyn Peck and SMU head coach Adia Barnes during the inaugural GameChangers Brunch hosted by the SMU Office of Cultural Intelligence.

Peck forged her own path, starting with her decision to play at Vanderbilt instead of powerhouse Tennessee. When she was in school, the WNBA didn't exist, and the only options for playing professionally were overseas. 

Vanderbilt head coach Phil Lee gave Peck a piece of advice, telling her, "You want to have the option to pick instead of waiting to be picked." So, she turned down being a Lady Volunteer for Pat Summit and paved her own way in Nashville.

"One of the hardest phone calls I had to make was calling Pat and telling her that I was going to go to Vanderbilt," Peck said. "The big reason that I did that, though, is I wanted to go to a place where it hadn't been done. She had already established Tennessee, and Vanderbilt had just come up winning the NIT, so I wanted to be part of taking that program to the NCAA tournament."

Both women helped lead their respective schools to their first NCAA tournaments as players. They then made history as coaches. Peck's national championship with Purdue remains the only one by the Big Ten in women's basketball.

With it, Peck was the first Black head coach to win a women's Division I basketball national championship. 

"I had always been told, growing up, when you're Black, you've got to be 150% to be considered average. So I thought that was my responsibility, that I just had to work my tail off. And it wasn't until we won the national championship, and I'm walking off the court, and a reporter asked me, 'How does it feel to be the first Black woman to win a national championship?' And I hadn't thought about it."

She was joined by Dawn Staley in 2017.

Peck gave pieces of that championship net to other coaches, including Staley. It was when Staley's South Carolina won its first national championship, and she shared that story that Peck got some of her recognition.

"I thought about an English teacher that I had, and she was teaching us about making outlines," Peck said. "She said to me, 'You only have a 1 if there's a 2. So when I was the first, it meant there were going to be others to come."

Staley then paid that deed forward, giving Barnes a piece of her championship net. And then Barnes nearly joined them in 2021, when her Arizona team reached the national championship game. 

That was a journey for Barnes that began as a player at Arizona and then taking over for her alma mater when others told her it wasn't a good idea.

"Everybody in the country (other coaches), they all said, 'Don't take that job. That job's career suicide,'" Barnes said. "I didn't know much about it. I went there, but I didn't know about the coaching landscape for a long time. I just took a leap of faith, and I did it."

Barnes led Arizona to a WNIT championship and two years later the Wildcats would reach the Final Four and national championship game, all just after Barnes had given birth to her second child just as the season started.

"I was in the moment, and everything was going by so fast," Barnes said.

And while Peck proved a trailblazer for successful Black women head basketball coaches, it almost didn't happen. Her entry into coaching happened almost by accident. Peck was at USA Basketball tryouts to support a former teammate. There, she was approached about joining Coach Summit's staff at Tennessee. 

After two years with the Lady Vols, Peck spent a season at Kentucky and then one at Purdue when that job became open. After only four years as an assistant, she wasn't sure she was ready. But she took a leap of faith and made the most of the door that had been opened for her.

"Purdue offered me the job three times, and I turned it down because I'd only been an assistant, restricted earnings, at Tennessee and then a full-time assistant at Kentucky one year and an assistant one year at Purdue, and now I'm going to be the head coach in the Big Ten. Are you crazy?"

It was Coach Summit who gave her the advice that even if she didn't feel ready, she would get ready. That led to her winning a national championship, an opportunity to coach in the WNBA, a return to college at Florida and a later stint as an assistant at her alma mater, Vanderbilt.

Barnes' career after playing at Arizona included some hardships. She was a WNBA draft pick but would have to deal with being cut and an injury, two things that had never happened to her before.

But through those, she came back stronger every time.

"Those two things were devastating at the time, but they're the best things to happen," Barnes said. "... Those two things, looking back, it was meant to be. It happened for a reason. Every time one door shut, a bigger door opened."