Oklahoma City Thunder coach Mark Daigneault currently holds the best NBA coaching record this season—and his wife, Ashley Kerr, boasts the second-best record in their household. Kerr is an assistant women’s gymnastics coach at Oklahoma, where her team, the Sooners, went 33-2 this year and secured another national championship, marking their third title in four years.
As Daigneault pursues his first NBA championship with the top-seeded Thunder, who face the Indiana Pacers in the NBA Finals, Kerr’s coaching career has already been marked by seven national championships across her time with Florida and Oklahoma.
Daigneault openly praises his wife’s impressive resume. “Among my wife and me, she is by far the more accomplished, more impressive, better coach,” he said. “She’s the real deal.”
Their journey began with shared ties to Florida. Daigneault, from Massachusetts, started as a student manager at Connecticut, part of the team that won the 2004 NCAA championship. He then spent three years as an assistant coach at Holy Cross before joining Billy Donovan’s staff at Florida. Meanwhile, Kerr, a Florida native, was finishing her collegiate gymnastics career as a standout athlete and academic achiever. She stayed on with the program as a volunteer student manager in 2011 and worked her way up to assistant coach.
The couple’s relationship developed during this time, but when Daigneault got an offer to coach the Oklahoma City Blue, the Thunder’s G League affiliate, it meant a long-distance relationship because Kerr remained in Gainesville. She encouraged him to take the job, calling it a “no-brainer.” Eventually, Kerr relocated to Oklahoma and began building her coaching career with the Sooners, initially as a volunteer coach focusing on balance beam, helping the team win three NCAA titles. After NCAA rule changes allowed volunteer assistant roles to become paid positions, Kerr was promoted to a full-time assistant.
While Daigneault rose from coaching the Blue to leading the Thunder, the couple married and started a family. Oklahoma’s head coach, K.J. Kindler, praises Kerr for her leadership and ability to connect with athletes on a personal level.
At home, the couple’s two young children—ages 3 and 2—are the true bosses, keeping their parents on their toes. Daigneault jokes, “We are not in charge. We are just surviving.”
Their youngest child was born in April 2023, a day after the Thunder were eliminated from the play-in tournament and during the NCAA gymnastics finals in Fort Worth, Texas. Daigneault managed to get there just in time for the birth, and that same night, the Sooners clinched another national title. Kindler noted the team rallied around Kerr during this time.
Being married to another coach comes with benefits: a shared understanding of the demanding hours, travel, and unpredictability. Still, they strive to keep work and home life separate, focusing on family when they’re together.
Daigneault credits a series of fortunate events for where he is today. Had he pursued his master’s degree immediately after college as planned, he might never have coached at Holy Cross, met Kerr, or reached the NBA Finals. Reflecting on his journey, he said, “If you replayed my life 10 million times, this would only happen once. There’s never a minute that I’m not grateful.”
