The New York Liberty recently announced the appointment of Walt Hopkins as head coach. To help get acquainted with the Liberty's new leader, we caught up with him to learn five things to know.

1. BACKGROUND

Tell us about yourself.

"I started coaching high school in Sparks, Nevada (Reed High School) for boys and then girls. I worked in player development for both high school and college players, and had the opportunity very early on to be around some great player development coaches.

I did my masters program at Harvard. I was initially going to study teaching but once I got into the classroom, I realized that I really wanted to coach. I started studying player development, moral development and social psychology to learn the optimal way to create buy-in with players and motivate people.

From Harvard, I went to Tulsa where I worked in player development. I was also an assistant coach Utah Valley, which was also a great experience. Those experiences made me really want to study more and focus on coaching. That is when I went back to school at Berkeley. I focused completely on coaching.

After owning my own business doing some individual player development with WNBA, NBA, college and high school players, I got a call from Cheryl and ended up having an amazing run there. That's what led me to this moment."

Read the rest of Hopkins' interview at NYLiberty.com.