Sue Bird's legacy shines bright at UConn jersey retirement

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UConn women’s basketball retired Sue Bird’s jersey number in a pre-game ceremony on Sunday. It’s just the third number retired in the program’s illustrious history, joining Rebecca Lobo and Swin Cash. Maya Moore will be coming up in the future (she couldn’t line up a date with the school to do it this season) while Diana Taurasi is coming down the pike, too.

“I want to introduce a living legend who we've had the privilege of watching and getting to know,” Geno Auriemma said in the ceremony before the win over DePaul. “The greatest point guard ever in the history of basketball — men’s and women’s.”

“You’ve never said that before in front of me,” Bird quipped as she took the mic. “This is home. This is where it started…to see my number up in the rafters, next to these other legends, just an incredible, incredible honor.”

Bird shared that her 12-year-old niece might have been more excited to see Azzi Fudd than her aunt’s jersey retirement, though she acknowledged that’s a sign of the sport’s growth since her time in Storrs.

“That wasn't my reality…I couldn’t just turn the TV on whenever and watch my favorite team,” Bird said. “There weren't women on TV all the time. So, how lucky am I that I got to come to a university that supported women's basketball? I got to play in front of fans that believed in women’s basketball.”

She continued: “I got to play with teammates who had the same dreams as I did. I got to learn what it means to be a part of something bigger…because of the way the alumni embraced us. Watching them try to achieve their dreams, I knew what was possible. I hope you guys watch the alumni in that way now,” she added, offering a message to the current Huskies.

Bird concluded by expressing gratitude to the coaches and fans who made her exemplary career possible.

“All the accomplishments, all the trademarks of my career, my game, everything I went on to achieve after playing here, it started here, their fingerprints are all over that,” she said. “I'm so thankful for retiring my number… Hopefully, when you all come in here, you see that number, now it’s all of ours. We can all share in it, and that's what this all means to me.”

What does it take to have a number retired by the world’s most successful basketball program? Induction into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame is the requirement, even though that achievement says more about their post-UConn careers than anything.

“The amazing thing about these [four] was the incredible amount of success they had after they left here,” Auriemma explained. “As great as their accomplishments were here, as incredible as their achievements were here, what they've done since they left has been nothing short of incredible.”

At UConn, Bird won two national championships and earned two All-American nods, sweeping the national player of the year awards as a senior in 2002. She was the first overall pick in the 2002 WNBA Draft by the Seattle Storm — becoming the first Husky to be selected No. 1 — and spent her entire 21-year career with them. Along with former UConn teammate Diana Taurasi, Bird became the first basketball player to win five Olympic gold medals at the 2020 Tokyo games.

In Seattle, Bird won championships in 2004, 2010, 2018, and 2020. She’s the league’s all-time assists leader, ninth all-time in scoring, and the only player in league history with more than 500 games under her belt. Since her retirement in 2022, Bird and her fiance, soccer superstar Megan Rapinoe, have been advocates for women’s sports and even started a podcast together.

As her number 10 enters the rafters at Gampel Pavilion, the signature moment of her collegiate career came on that very court: Bird at the Buzzer, the game-winning shot to beat Notre Dame in the 2001 Big East championship game.

But beyond the obvious, Auriemma recalled other moments that highlighted her journey.

When Bird tore her ACL as a freshman, the coach noted: “The minute that we had to play without her, we became a good team, but we stopped becoming a great team.”

Auriemma also highlighted her immaculate half of play in the 2002 Elite Eight.

“You watch the first half of the Old Dominion game in the regionals in Milwaukee, you'll see a half of basketball that's never been played before or since,” he shared. “It's pretty amazing.”

For all Bird’s achievements throughout her career — including national player of the year honors in 2002 and multiple All-American nods — her intangibles are always what set her apart.

“More than anything, there was this level of trust — that the coaches had, that the other players had — and it never wavered,” he said. “That carried over to the WNBA, the US Olympic team. Just legendary, one of one. We've had a couple ‘one of ones,’ but they don't come along very often. And she was certainly one of them.”

Through her excellence at UConn, which continued into the WNBA, Olympics, and social advocacy, Auriemma sees how influential Bird is, even today, to his current players. His team calls UConn’s throwbacks from her era, which it wore on Sunday in honor of the legendary point guard, “the Sue Bird uniforms.”

“She wasn't the only player that played on those teams but that's how it became synonymous. Today's players, maybe, caught the last bit of her career, and her legend lives even in these young players. I think her activities off the court are also a big part of it,” he said. “But I hope that young players do take the time to go and watch…the way she played, they could learn a lot from that.”

While Bird is as poised and unflappable as they come nowadays, Auriemma remembered how nervous she was on an early visit to UConn. But on the court?

“She played with so much flair. She was quick as all hell and just seemed to have tremendous control, even back then at that age,” he said.

Bird didn’t remember the butterflies in her stomach so much as the gameday atmosphere, which was a rarity in women’s basketball back then.

“I saw Gampel Pavilion filled, everybody going nuts. I was like, Well, this is kind of cool,” she said. 

Then she met Auriemma in his office.

“Coach Auriemma, who he is now, it's not that much different. He is extremely confident, charismatic. He can be intimidating, especially for a teenager,” she said. “I just remember sitting in his office listening to him… and I was just like, what is going on right now?”

During the recruiting process, Bird quickly narrowed her list down to five schools but ultimately only took visits to UConn, Vanderbilt and Stanford. Duke and Notre Dame just missed the cut. One program that was never in the mix? Tennessee. Pat Summitt and her staff never offered Bird a scholarship because they’d already picked up a couple point guards in the class of 1997.

In the end, Bird chose the Huskies.

“For me, it was being at a place where I knew I was going to get challenged. I don't know if I consciously knew…it just pulled me in,” she said. “I was going to get challenged and pushed to my limits, which I needed. I needed that in those formative years.” 

For as much as No. 10 has become linked with Bird, the story behind it isn’t all that complicated. Her older sister Jen wore the same number and both sisters were born in October, so it was a natural choice for the younger Bird.

“I was really just following her. And she chose number 10 because she was born in October,” Bird explained.

That No. 10 jersey remains a favorite among UConn fans at games, even to this day. It helps that one of the other great point guards to come through the program donned it, too.

“The further you get away from a career, I feel like the more you really can sit in it and realize how special and how much you achieved,” she said. “Knowing that I was part of a generation that paved the way for younger players is really special. I mean, sometimes I'm like, ‘Is that [No. 10] mine, or is it Nika Muhl’s?’ But generally speaking, when I see the number 10, I'm happy.”

With the time to reflect on her career, and the trajectory it took after leaving UConn, Bird noted how much the program has grown since she arrived on campus in 1998. At the time, the Huskies were still up-and-coming with just one national championship. Bird helped changed that.

“We weren't a dynasty,” she said. “I can only imagine the questions [players today] have to field with dynasty talk and legacy talk. Nobody was asking us that stuff. Nobody was asking, ‘What do I want my UConn legacy to be?’ That wasn't a thing.”

This can make it hard to compare accomplishments across generations because the program, and the world of college sports, is always evolving, whether it’s the old Big East, the AAC, or the new Big East, or a program with one championship to its name compared to 12.

“I feel like with any program that has success, each generation has to do their part. When we came along, I think it was our part to continue to build on top of what Rebecca Lobo, Jen Rizzotti, Jamele Elliott…what they started, and so we were just kind of adding to that. And then obviously, all the players since have run with it.”

Since retiring, Bird has been inducted into the Naismith and Women’s Basketball, Hall of Fame, had a street named after her and a statue of her likeness erected around Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena, then had her number retired by the Storm. While it’s not in her personality to be celebrated like that, she said those honors are permanent and give her an excuse to share in her glory with the people who helped make it possible.

“It's not necessarily the most comfortable place for me… they're prized possessions. But really…it's been this excuse to get all my family, all my friends, all my former teammates, former coaches, you name it, anyone who has touched my life in any way, shape, or form, bringing them together…so they get to share it,” she said.

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