{"id":109241,"date":"2016-02-19T09:18:48","date_gmt":"2016-02-19T14:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=109241"},"modified":"2016-06-14T14:33:55","modified_gmt":"2016-06-14T18:33:55","slug":"highs-lows-and-weird-moments-for-sue-bird-02","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2016\/02\/highs-lows-and-weird-moments-for-sue-bird-02\/","title":{"rendered":"Highs, Lows, and Weird Moments for Sue Bird \u201902"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before she turned 30, Sue Bird \u201902 (CLAS) had won two high school state championships (in New York), two NCAA titles (at UConn of course), two WNBA titles (with the Seattle Storm) and three Olympic gold medals (for Team USA coached by UConn women\u2019s basketball coach Geno Auriemma). At age 35, Bird is in her 15th season with the Storm, and is expected to head to Rio in 2016 to lead Team USA on a quest for a sixth consecutive gold medal. She stays tight with her alma mater, too, having just been appointed to the UConn Foundation Board of Directors. This weekend, she’s back on campus for the Olympic training camp<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

She spoke recently with\u00a0UConn Magazine<\/strong> from her home in Greenwich, Conn.<\/em><\/p>\n

You’ve stood on a lot of podiums and been presented with a lot of medals and trophies. Which has made you feel the most emotional?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When you\u2019re at the Olympics and they start playing the anthem, it\u2019s such a tearjerker. You\u2019ve seen it since you were a kid, and now you\u2019re there. It\u2019s a defining moment.<\/p>\n

But visibly crying, people seeing the emotion? I think it was my senior year, hugging Coach Auriemma after that last game. I was young. I\u2019d been through a lot. I tore my ACL freshman year \u2013 and then to have everything finish the way it did, essentially perfect.<\/p>\n

How does that ’02 Huskies Geno compare to Team USA Geno?<\/strong><\/p>\n

UConn Geno is always gonna be UConn Geno. He\u2019s dealing with kids \u2013 I was one of those kids. He\u2019s trying to groom you, to set a foundation not just for those four years, but for life. So he\u2019s hard on you and he\u2019s nitpicky, and sometimes it comes across as harsh, but he\u2019s setting that foundation.<\/p>\n

You feel much more equal when he\u2019s in his national team role. He treats us as adults because we are. He\u2019s as open to learning from us as we are to learning from him. We were just talking about that.<\/p>\n

According to him, he sees that at our level there are a lot of tough teams, tough games. We\u2019re constantly playing against good players and we know you need to stay on an even keel \u2013 you can\u2019t get too high when it\u2019s going good or too low when it\u2019s going bad. He sees that and says he\u2019s more calm because of it. Of course I see him on the sidelines at UConn games and he\u2019s still very verbal! So you don\u2019t think he\u2019s more calm?<\/strong> I do, but every generation says that. Rebecca Lobo and Jen Rizzotti say, \u2018Oh he\u2019s so much more mellow with you guys,\u2019 to me. And then we all say that to Breanna [Stewart, current UConn hoops star] now. In five years, Breanna will be saying it to the new players.<\/p>\n

You’ve recently become an ESPN commentator. In that role, if you could ask Geno one question he had to answer absolutely honestly, what would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been in this position and I\u2019m not going to ask the one I did ask [‘Which was the best UConn team?’], because he made fun of me. After the 2012 Olympics, he came out and was adamant about not ever coaching the Olympic team again. I want to know what made him say that in the first place, and what made him change his tune. I know what he says in the media, but he has to answer this honestly, right?<\/p>\n

Give us a highest\/lowest\/weirdest when it comes to Geno.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Highest:<\/strong> We played at St. John\u2019s my senior year. I\u2019m from New York and my family really wanted to have the team over for dinner. Coach moved everything around to make it happen.\u00a0Lowest:<\/strong> That would be like every other day. Laughs. ‘Cause he was so hard on me. But, no, a low would be: I\u2019m at practice at Gampel, and you know how people are always walking through that concourse? Well some football player or something is walking through and I\u2019m throwing a no-look pass that goes out of bounds, and Coach is yelling at me: \u2018What\u2019s the matter with you? What are you looking at? Are you looking at him?\u2019 Then he yells at this guy: \u2018Hey! Hey you! You can\u2019t come through here anymore \u2013\u00a0Sue Bird can\u2019t stop looking at you. She must like you.\u2019 Everybody was laughing, except me. I was embarrassed.\u00a0Weirdest:\u00a0<\/strong>Every time he tries to dance.<\/p>\n

Best\/worst advice he ever gave you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Best and worst are the same.<\/p>\n

My freshman year I got hurt, and so I hadn\u2019t played much going into sophomore year. Coach brought me into his office and said, \u2018Everything that happens on court, it\u2019s your fault. I don\u2019t care if Asjha Jones makes a bad pass to Swin Cash, it\u2019s your fault.\u2019 When I walked out of the office, I thought that\u2019s the worst advice I ever heard.<\/p>\n

Of course it turns out it was the best, too. He was trying to get me to take on a personality where I had control over everything on the court, whether I had the ball or not.<\/p>\n

As a player, you have to be able to pass, shoot, score, dribble \u2013 of course the fundamentals are important. But when you get older, at pro level, everyone can do those things. As a point guard, you stand out by having an impact without taking a shot, without making a pass. It\u2019s a spectrum of things. Being a calming force, for one. You want your teammates to look at you when you have the ball and be confident calling the plays, making sure everyone is in the right place at the right time. It\u2019s a brain game. One of the best compliments someone can give you is that they notice when you\u2019re not on the court; that the game\u2019s not as smooth as when you\u2019re out there.<\/p>\n

You are known as an extraordinary mentor. An assists-are-as-important-as-points kind of player. What advice do you give the newbies?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Younger players when they come in, each one is different, facing different obstacles. It\u2019s a tough transition to the WNBA. Now all of a sudden every player can play, pass, shoot as well as you can, so it\u2019s the same thing we were talking about before. Never get too high or too low \u2013\u00a0it will be too stressful.<\/p>\n

Find out what separates you, and bring that to the table every single time<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The older you get, all of us who are considered veterans know it\u2019s how you conduct yourself every day, being a good teammate, being a professional. All the clich\u00e9s, they\u2019re all true. You don\u2019t want to be the jerk in the locker room, you don\u2019t want to be that guy \u2013\u00a0I tell them that. When you\u2019re young and something doesn\u2019t go your way, it\u2019s easy to respond negatively. Remember, you don\u2019t want to have a bad reputation. That stuff can impact your next job.<\/p>\n

What do you think when people call you, as they often do, ‘the best point guard in history’?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I chuckle like I just did there \u2013 that\u2019s the shy me coming out \u2013\u00a0but it\u2019s a definite compliment. I\u2019ve been so lucky along the way. I\u2019ve played with the best players in the world: Diana [Taurasi], Lauren Jackson, Lisa [Leslie], Katie [Smith], Tina [Charles], and I\u2019ll be naming Maya [Moore] and Candace [Parker], as well as so many others. And with great players, well, they make my job easy. Hopefully I make their job easy, too, but definitely they make mine easy.<\/p>\n

Will there be a sixth consecutive gold medal for Team USA in Rio?<\/strong><\/p>\n

You know, that\u2019s the plan. We go into every Olympics with that plan. But people look at the record and the game scores and think it\u2019s easy. It\u2019s not easy. We don\u2019t have a lot of training time, and we\u2019re going against teams that have been together for years.<\/p>\n

Who are the biggest threats?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Australia is always one of toughest teams, and when they\u2019re healthy they\u2019re really tough. Then there\u2019s a team out of Serbia that just won an international championship. They are a young team with a style that\u2019s tough to play against; it\u2019s uptempo, they like to score.<\/p>\n

What’s next for Sue Bird? <\/strong><\/p>\n

As far as basketball goes, I really don\u2019t have an answer as to when I\u2019m going to stop. I\u2019m on the one-year plan \u2013 I re-evaluate every year. I\u2019ll play the 2015-2016 season and hopefully the 2016 Olympics, and then reevaluate.<\/p>\n

Have you been enjoying the role of commentator?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have<\/em> enjoyed ESPN. It\u2019s basketball, but it\u2019s also new and challenging. I\u2019m learning the ins and outs. Whether it\u2019s going to be a career, I don\u2019t know. That\u2019s what I\u2019m doing with a couple things, like basketball camp \u2013 it\u2019s all within basketball. Coaching?<\/strong> When you\u2019re a basketball player, that\u2019s always on the table.<\/p>\n

Has your communications major from UConn been helpful at\u00a0ESPN?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t take many broadcasting classes. Looking back, I wish I\u2019d thought to do that. When you go to UConn and play basketball, it\u2019s like one big communications class. I learned by being a player what to say and not to say, and now being on the other side, I think it helps me be a good interviewer.<\/p>\n

As the newest member of the UConn Foundation Board of Director, what change would you like to effect?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been doing this for literally five seconds! But I\u2019m excited to learn, to be a part of that. I see what other schools are doing in this way. I play with so many girls, so just name a school and I will know someone who went there. I see what they all do with their alums. I see how they are getting their alums involved and, as one of the younger members, I\u2019d like to bring some of those ideas back to UConn.<\/p>\n

Do you have any pre-game rituals\/superstitions?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nothing crazy like turning lights off and on every 10 minutes. But I do have some superstitions, for instance, if a song is playing when we win, then I\u2019ll keep listening to it until we lose. And I have a [pre-game] routine I stick to. I don\u2019t deviate much; I try to eat at a certain time, go to sleep at a certain time, wear my hair a certain way. The ponytail?<\/strong> Oooooh, yeah, the ponytail. Is the pontyail different on game day than practice day?<\/strong> Oh gosh yes. It may not appear so, but in practice it\u2019s messy, and for a game I spend a lot of time making it straight and smooth. I\u2019m just kidding \u2013 sort of \u2013 it\u2019s amazing what a little water and hairspray can do!<\/p>\n

Give us a highest\/lowest\/weirdest for your time at UConn.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Highest:<\/strong> I have a lot of highs to choose from, but I\u2019ll pick meeting the president. It was George Bush in my senior year.\u00a0Lowest:<\/strong> We were supposed to meet Bill Clinton my sophomore year, and there was a crisis or something so it never happened.\u00a0Weirdest:<\/strong> Freshman year, I had just torn my ACL and it was a month or two post-op, it was like January or February, and I was walking to a class that I had a test in. I took a shortcut down a hill and it was icy and I slipped and I really hurt myself, and from that day on, on my surgically repaired knee, I can\u2019t straighten it all the way \u2013 my left knee is always at a 1 or 2. The doctors won\u2019t say [the fall did it], but I could straighten it all the way before and I haven\u2019t been able to since, so that\u2019s kind of weird. Did you make it to the test?<\/strong> I made it to the test, but my knee was throbbing the whole time.<\/p>\n

How about in Russia [where you played pro ball]?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Highest:<\/strong> Winning four Euroleague championships in a row.\u00a0Lowest:<\/strong> In that entire country, they do not have ginger ale. That\u2019s a huge low for me.\u00a0Weirdest:<\/strong> They garnish everything with dill. Everything! Soup, salad, chicken, fish, everything is covered in dill. So now I\u2019m over dill!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Husky standout Sue Bird is back on campus this weekend for the Olympic training camp. She spoke recently with UConn Magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":109243,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,1712,2226,2225],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[117],"class_list":["post-109241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-athletics","category-clas","category-uconn-storrs"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 15:10:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109241"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109419,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109241\/revisions\/109419"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/109243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109241"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=109241"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=109241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}