{"id":70530,"date":"2012-12-21T09:53:37","date_gmt":"2012-12-21T14:53:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=70530"},"modified":"2013-01-15T15:52:25","modified_gmt":"2013-01-15T20:52:25","slug":"rizzotti-joins-auriemma-and-lobo-in-womens-basketball-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2012\/12\/rizzotti-joins-auriemma-and-lobo-in-womens-basketball-hall-of-fame\/","title":{"rendered":"Rizzotti Joins Auriemma and Lobo in Women\u2019s Basketball Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"nnifer<\/a>
Jennifer Rizotti played for UConn from 1992-1996. She will be inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame for her career as a player. (UConn Athletic Communications)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the No. 2 women\u2019s basketball team faces the University of Hartford at Chase Arena as the visiting team on Saturday at 1 p.m. (SNY, UConn IMG Sports Radio Network), a bit of history will be made.<\/p>\n

It will not be the first time the teacher, Geno Auriemma, faces his former student, Jennifer Rizzotti \u201996 (CLAS), but it will be the first time they meet as members of an exclusive club, the Women\u2019s Basketball Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

In July, Rizzotti was named to the Class of 2013 that will be inducted next year in Knoxville, Tenn. She is the second member of UConn\u2019s first NCAA Championship team to join Auriemma, who was inducted in 2006 as a coach, in the Women\u2019s Basketball Hall of Fame. Rebecca Lobo \u201995 (CLAS) was inducted in 2010 as a player.<\/p>\n

Rizzotti also will be inducted for her career as a player, which includes her role as the point guard on the 1995 championship team that finished 35-0. She was a GTE\/CoSIDA Academic All-American, a two-time Kodak All-American and NCAA Regional Most Outstanding Player, and as a senior won the 1996 Wade Trophy, Associated Press Player of the Year and Big East Player of the Year. She went on to play as a professional for eight years in the American Basketball League, where she was a two-time All-Star, and in the WNBA, where she was a member of the 1999 WNBA champion Houston Comets.<\/p>\n

\"Rizzotti<\/a>
Rizzotti is now in her 13th year as head women’s basketball coach at the University of Hartford. (Steve McLaughlin\/University of Hartford)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI\u2019m certainly flattered and overwhelmed to be honored for it,\u201d said Rizzotti, now in her 13th season as head coach at Hartford. \u201cJust the memory in itself and my own sense of knowing that I was an important piece of that [UConn] program at that time is enough, but it\u2019s never a bad thing to be recognized. It allows me to reflect back on my career in my playing days and really take a hard look at what it meant in the whole scheme of women\u2019s basketball growing to the level it has nationally.\u201d<\/p>\n

The success of the 1995 Huskies women\u2019s basketball team was followed by gold medals won by the U.S. women\u2019s basketball, soccer, and softball teams in the 1996 Olympic Games, which are credited with helping to provide young girls with female role models in sports. Next, there was an explosion of participation in sports by young women and the start of women\u2019s professional sports leagues, which led to the kind of opportunities promised by the passage of Title IX legislation that prohibits sex discrimination in education.<\/p>\n

\u201cI certainly am very aware of how Rebecca, myself, and all these succession of players have benefited from that law, but also all the players that have gone before us that didn\u2019t have the opportunities that we had,\u201d Rizzotti says. \u201cI look at all the young women [today] who have continued their careers in coaching after they\u2019re done playing and how many more opportunities there are now for women. It\u2019s hard to think it can\u2019t continue to get better, because it\u2019s not just in athletics. I can only imagine what my generation can do to push to make the after-athletic experience even better for the next generation of women.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rizzotti's<\/a>
Rizzotti’s image on the cover of Sports Illustrated reflected the intensity she brought to UConn’s 70-64 win over Tennessee.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rizzotti\u2019s image on the cover of Sports Illustrated<\/em> magazine \u2013 wearing knee pads, her eyes focused intently on the basketball she was chasing during the 70-64 win over Tennessee \u2013 reflected the fiery intensity she brought on the floor of the basketball court as the point guard responsible for carrying out Auriemma\u2019s game plan.<\/p>\n

Before the 1995 NCAA Championship game, the Huskies walked out on the court for their warm-up period and found the Tennessee players taking up both sides of the court doing their pre-game stretching. That did not sit well with Rizzotti.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were sitting down, circled up in the middle of the court, like they owned it,\u201d Rizzotti recalls, smiling. \u201cI told them to move, all right; they wouldn\u2019t at first. I went right over to the scorer\u2019s table and said they\u2019re sitting on our side and we\u2019re trying to warm up and they\u2019re in our way. After a couple of times of trying to get them to move, someone came out and got them to move.\u201d<\/p>\n

Auriemma says more than any other student-athlete he has coached, it is Rizzotti who can be considered the iconic figure of UConn women\u2019s basketball.<\/p>\n

\"Head<\/a>
Head coach Geno Auriemma says Rizzotti can be considered the iconic figure of UConn women’s basketball. (UConn Athletic Communications)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhen you think back, I don\u2019t know that there\u2019s been a single player that I\u2019ve coached in all the time I\u2019ve been at Connecticut whose personality, style, and spirit came to symbolize a team or a program,\u201d Auriemma said earlier this week. \u201c[When] people thought about the University of Connecticut they immediately thought of Jen Rizzotti. When you average 11 points a game as a senior and won the Honda Award, that\u2019s a level of respect very, very few players get. For her wins as a college player, for her impact on creating what\u2019s happened at Connecticut, for what she\u2019s done beyond that in helping to grow the game, coach the game, it\u2019s an honor that I knew some day would come. I\u2019m glad it came sooner rather than later. I can\u2019t take any of the credit with her when she was here, because she brought it with her. We just turned on the spigot and let it go. She did the rest.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Rizzotti, the memories of her time at UConn remain clear. Some are ever present.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll never forget getting chills every time I ran out of the tunnel to the Husky fight song warming up for a game,\u201d she says. \u201cThere was just literally nothing better than playing in front of our fans in our building and the opportunity to get to play with my teammates every day. I remember the championship and I remember the trips, just those feelings. Maybe I\u2019d remember things differently if I wasn\u2019t still involved so closely. When I see these [current Huskies] play, I wonder if they realize how special the opportunity is. I don\u2019t know that any of us really ever do.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving a chance to play in a great atmosphere, love your teammates and play for them, celebrate wins together, be on road trips in the hotel together and be goofy on the bus; it\u2019s like you take it for granted when you\u2019re going through it. Then you\u2019re not doing it anymore and you realize how special it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"As<\/a>
As head coach at the University of Hartford, Rizzotti hopes to create the same kinds of memories for her players that she has from her years as a Husky. (Steve McLaughlin\/University of Hartford)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Creating those kinds of memories for her student-athletes is one of her goals as a coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo the banners matter to me? Do I want to win? Yes. I wouldn\u2019t be here as long if I didn\u2019t want to win,\u201d Rizzotti says. \u201cBut when my first recruit gets married and I get invited to her wedding and 10 of her teammates are there and all we\u2019re talking about it are memories they had about when they were here and joking about things that I didn\u2019t know about, and there\u2019s the trust and that relationship that still exists, that\u2019s when I know I\u2019m doing things the right way. That\u2019s when I know that I learned what was most important at UConn: That treating people the right way, caring about them as people more than as players is going to be what ends up ultimately deciding your fate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was given a lifelong career in basketball from playing and then coaching, and I was also given this great memory and these great relationships that will never go away, and I want to give that same thing to my players.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rizzotti<\/a>
Rizzotti will host the Huskies at the University of Hartford’s Chase Arena on Dec. 2 at 1 p.m. (Mike Orazzi\/University of Hartford)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That is why Rizzotti wanted to host the Huskies at Chase Arena, instead of playing at the XL Center in Hartford, which has been the site for previous games with the exception of a 2011 NCAA Tournament game in Storrs. She recalled a Hartford home game against Marist that was nationally televised and the energy in the building that day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re a player you want to play in an atmosphere like that; you don\u2019t care if the people are cheering for you or against you,\u201d Rizzotti says. \u201cAlthough we lost, it was one of the most fun games I coached in because of what it was like in this building. That\u2019s what I think about when I\u2019m trying to picture what it will be like when UConn comes in. The excitement of our kids walking out of the locker room to a full house, it\u2019s going to be fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rizzotti also wanted to provide an opportunity for Hartford fans to see the Huskies in the intimate atmosphere of Chase Arena, which has a capacity of about 4,000. Auriemma immediately agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought if your fans are going to support it, which I\u2019m sure they will; and they\u2019re going to sell out the place, which I\u2019m sure they will; and your kids get to play in that environment, even if it\u2019s just once during their careers, then you\u2019ve done an incredible thing for your program and I would be glad to be a part of it,\u201d Auriemma says. \u201cI\u2019m really excited about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

To hear Rizzotti’s thoughts on being selected to the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame and some of her memories of playing at UConn, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To hear Geno Auriemma discussing Rizzotti\u2019s role on the first national championship team and her induction into the Women\u2019s Basketball Hall of Fame, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Head coach Geno Auriemma says more than any other student-athlete he has coached, Rizzotti can be considered the iconic figure of UConn women\u2019s basketball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":70545,"comment_status":"open","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":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[55],"class_list":["post-70530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 16:16:02","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\/70530","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70530"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70549,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70530\/revisions\/70549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/70545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70530"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=70530"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=70530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}