Vancouver’s Danielle Langford helps get NBA Warriors back on hardwood

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Danielle Langford has a job in the NBA, and there’s a Steve Nash connection that goes with it.

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Langford, 39, a former star point guard in the high school ranks with Mission’s Heritage Park Highlanders and in university at Simon Fraser University, signed on with the National Basketball Association’s Golden State Warriors in September as manager of player rehabilitation.

Langford had been fascinated with physiotherapy since she was a kid — for her Grade 9 career day she went to the office of her then-physiotherapist Greg Bay — and was contemplating branching off to studying that in university in the summer of 2005. She had just helped SFU wrap up a 38-0 season that included the Canadian Interuniversity Sports (now known as U Sports) national title in what was her fifth and final year of eligibility.

In the midst then of trying to figure what was next for her, Langford learned that Nash, who was in his second tour with the Phoenix Suns, was coming to work out at SFU with physiotherapist Rick Celebrini one day that off-season. She was tapped in enough to the physio scene even back then to recognize that Celebrini was one of its shining stars.

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Langford watched their session and then approached the pair, asking if she could get a couple of questions answered.  

Celebrini slid back, Nash stepped forward. And they both chuckled when Langford politely said that it was in fact Celebrini she wanted to talk to.

Celebrini, as it happens, is Langford’s boss today with the Warriors. He’s in his fourth season with the NBA club, receiving a promotion this year to vice-president of player health and performance. This run with the Warriors follows stints with both Major League Soccer’s Vancouver Whitecaps and the National Hockey League’s Vancouver Canucks.  

“I have more of a memory of meeting him that day at SFU than he does,” Langford said. “As many questions as I could have had for Steve, the more pertinent ones I had were for Rick.”

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Soon after that meeting, Langford, who is the daughter of longtime SFU women’s hoops coach Bruce Langford, applied to study physio at Curtin University, a school in Perth, Australia. A psychology major with a kinesiology minor at SFU, Langford would complete her master’s degree in physical therapy at Curtin.  

It was also there where she met her husband Gareth Adams,   a former University of B.C. rugby player from Calgary. They have two children: Oliver, 8, and Madeline, 6.

Upon returning to the Lower Mainland, Langford worked for Bay at Sport and Spine Physiotherapy in Abbotsford before moving onto the Treloar Physiotherapy Clinic in Vancouver and then Fortius Sport and Health, the Burnaby-based centre founded by Celebrini.

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It was through that connection that Langford met Alex McKechnie, 70, considered one of the innovators of current physiotherapy. He started out at SFU in the 1970s before moving over to the Whitecaps.

McKechnie had worked with Nash, tennis star Jimmy Connors and soccer’s Owen Hargreaves. His work with Shaquille O’Neal led to the Los Angeles Lakers making him a full-time staff member. He went from there to the Toronto Raptors, and he’s currently their vice-president of player health and performance.

Celebrini, 54, who’s from Burnaby, is a former soccer player accomplished enough to play for Canada’s Under-20 national team and later spend four years with the Vancouver 86ers. He broke his ankle as a teenager, came under the care of McKechnie at that time and they’ve since remained tight.

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Langford meshed with McKechnie to such a degree that they joined forces to found Core AIM, an athletic development program looking to get grassroots coaches more proactive than reactive with physio by learning optimal ways of physical movement for younger athletes.  

“Connecting coaches to the clinic,” is among its taglines.

Core AIM has a website ( coreaim.ca ) and is considering expanding to host clinics or classes.

“She expressed interest in some things that I had already begun working on,” McKechnie said. “Some of the movement patterns were similar.

“We’re trying to create a tool to give coaches something for the younger age group.”

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McKechnie tried to recruit Langford for the Raptors rehab team but they couldn’t find a way to make it work. He said she is an “exceptionally talented therapist” who’s decidedly “player centric.”

“She understands the nuances of being a player and she’s able to apply that knowledge with rehabilitation,” McKechnie said. “If a player understands that you understand what they’re going through, that can go a long way.

“She’s got a bright future.”

McKechnie’s “willingness to share” struck Langford immediately.

“If you showed an interest, it was constant sharing,” she said. “The fact he still has the passion for what he does and the joy for what he does really speaks to me.”

She readily talks about how lucky she feels she’s been to have McKechnie take an interest in her career and tutor her. The same goes for the likes of Bay and Celebrini as well as Deb Treloar and Carol Kennedy from Treloar Physio.  

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“I take little pieces from all of them and incorporate in what I try to do,” Langford said.

She’s also been known to send them thank-you notes on National Mentoring Day.

“More than anything, I stay in touch and try to show appreciation,” she said.

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There are undoubtedly people in the B.C. basketball community expecting Langford’s post-playing career to centre around coaching.

Her father Bruce Langford was a high school coach with Mission’s Hatzic Crusaders and then Heritage Park before moving to SFU. Uncle Paul Langford is the longtime coach of the Riverside Rapids, a Port Coquitlam girls’ team that is regularly among the top high school teams in the province.

“I love the psychology piece of it. I love the idea of trying to find out what makes somebody tick and being able to build on that and help them develop,” Danielle Langford said. “I’ve never been somebody who’s been keen on watching on game tape and going over it and I know that’s a major part of the job. I’ve never been able to latch onto that.

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“I would love to coach my kids. My dad coached me and it was huge for me and huge for our relationship. I recognize the impact coaches can have. It’s something that I’ll do, but on the side.”

It does sound like Langford could still demonstrate drills at a high level. She admits that Golden State coaches and players quickly picked up that she had a playing background.  

The 5-foot-5 Langford is one of the better players this province has ever produced. She was most valuable player of the 2005 CIS national tournament. She is third all time in assists (802) for SFU and tops in three-pointers made (388), with 119 more than second spot on the list. She was also MVP of the Triple A tournament in her final year at Heritage Park.

“Coaches and players can tell that I used to play. The cool part of this journey is that my history as a player and coach is a strength of mine, which I draw on daily when working with players and collaborating with coaches. At present the area I now get to expand and focus on is the medical aspect, which I am loving and learning more and more each day,” Langford said.

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