Coach La-Force
Daynia is the executive director and driving force behind the Terance Mann Complete Player Foundation (TMCPF), a non-profit organization she co-founded with her eldest son, Los Angeles Clippers’ Terance Mann. An advocate for diversity, Daynia works tirelessly, along with her youngest son Martin, to fulfill the TMCPF’s mission of providing underserved youth access to educational and athletic opportunities as a pathway to success.
Established in 2023, Daynia has been instrumental in raising significant funds for TMCPF, which, in a short period of time, has enabled the organization to contribute critical resources and mentorship to youth across the United States and in Daynia’s native, St. Lucia. TMCPF’s impact has been so profound, Daynia was recently invited to represent the TMCPF at White House and the St. Lucian Embassy.
No stranger to the spotlight, Daynia has been influencing and motivating young people most of her life. Her determination and commitment led her to success both on the court as a player at Georgetown University and off the court as a coach.
Daynia was an assistant coach in the WNBA for the Atlanta Dream after spending nearly 25 years coaching women’s college basketball at the Division I and II levels. The former head coach of the University of Rhode Island’s women’s basketball team, Daynia was URI’s first minority woman head coach in any sport. This is one of the many achievements Daynia earned during her extensive collegiate coaching career. Prior to making history at URI, she served as the head coach at Northeastern where she was twice named the CAA Coach of the Year.
She stepped away from coaching to lead the TMCPF but has not put her whistle away for good. Daynia has teamed up with her husband, Eddie Benton (Assistant Women’s Basketball Coach at Robert Morris University and All-Time leading scorer at the University of Vermont), to run BentForce Basketball, a basketball training program for youth and elite athletes.
A champion for equity, opportunity and giving back, Daynia has a demonstrated history of being active in the communities with the most need and strives to make a difference. She is an active member of numerous organizations and is the founder and president of Mothers Against Racism, a non-profit educational resource center for disseminating information on how mothers, united, will defeat racism.
The co-founder of Courtside Moms Media, she is dedicated to supporting mothers of NBA and WNBA players and providing them with critical resources to help these families navigate finances, mental hurdles and the overall complex world of being a professional athlete.
She was one of just three women recently invited by the Greater Lowell (MA) Chamber of Commerce to participate in their Annual W.I.S.E Conference: Women Trailblazers, a discussion highlighting women who have paved the way, broken barriers and achieved significant milestones in their respective fields.
She also recently participated in Sinclair Health’s discussion on Mental Health and Opioids where she emphasized recognizing early indicators of deteriorating mental health that can lead to drug addiction and highlighted potential solutions, including those offered by the TMCPF, which can provide alternative paths to transform lives.
Daynia earned a Master’s Degree in Education from Long Island University (LIU) and a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Psychology from Georgetown, where she was an integral part of the Hoyas women’s basketball team that reached the first-ever NCAA Sweet 16 in 1993. In a tribute to his mom, Terance wears #14 on his Clippers’ jersey, the same number Daynia wore at Georgetown.
