How rare UConn jersey retirement memorializes Sue Bird’s legacy

Among the highlights, there’s one that exists forever in UConn lore. On March 6, 2001, Bird soared over that season’s BIG EAST Player of the Year, Ruth Riley, for a championship-clinching, buzzer-beater to lift No. 2 Connecticut to a 78-76 victory over No. 1 Notre Dame. The shot, which accompanied a Bird half-court 3-pointer at the buzzer to close out the first half, resulted in UConn clinching, fittingly, its 10th BIG EAST Tournament title.

“That’s probably my biggest moment, especially in the BIG EAST, but probably even in UConn,” Bird told reporters. “And that goes with the national championships, because it’s very rare at Connecticut [that] you’re in those types of scenarios. … I don’t know that I was in that many late-game scenarios. So to hit a game winner at the buzzer for a championship wearing a UConn Jersey … It’s definitely special.”

Bird’s iconic No. 10 UConn jersey joined a select group on Sunday. It’s just the third women’s basketball number to be retired in program history after Rebecca Lobo‘s No. 50 and Swin Cash‘s No. 32.

The shot solidified Bird’s undeniable presence in the sports landscape, a space she occupied throughout her WNBA and overseas careers, and still does today.

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From Syossett to Storrs legend

When Sue Bird selected UConn prior to the 1998-99 season, it wasn’t the national powerhouse that it is today. It had won a national championship in 1995, but hadn’t returned to the Final Four since.

Coach Geno Auriemma and his staff won the recruiting battle for Bird, who “pretty much talked to [every program]” excluding, notably, UConn’s biggest rival at the time, Tennessee, which had already recruited its next batch of guards. Though she also visited Stanford and Vanderbilt, and considered both Duke and Notre Dame, Bird — who hails from Syosset, NY — chose to stay a bit closer to home.

“I remember thinking to myself — which is just so silly — I remember thinking to myself, ‘Well, if I went here, I could probably go home on weekends to do my laundry.'”

Bird’s decision to ultimately attend UConn was a turning point for the program because of her sky-high potential and national profile after winning two state titles in New York as a high schooler. Though she was a notoriously reserved teenager, she wasn’t shy in her own efforts to recruit her future teammates, including fellow high school seniors Swin Cash, Ashja Jones and Tamika Williams — all of whom went on to be drafted in the first round of the 2002 WNBA Draft.

“That particular recruiting class was one of the more unique recruiting classes, not just in the level of talent — it’s not every day that you recruit three Olympians in the same recruiting class — but they all worked on each other and helped recruit each other. And Sue was definitely one of the ringleaders of that,” Auriemma said. “Because one thing about Sue Bird is there isn’t anyone she doesn’t know. And there isn’t anything she doesn’t know about. … So when she was being recruited, she was all over it with Swin and Ashja, Tamika — that whole crew.”

That class went on to win two national championships (2000, 2002). The Huskies also won eight BIG EAST championships in Bird’s four years in Storrs during a time of great parity in the conference. Alongside Auriemma, some of the game’s great coaches, including C. Vivian Stringer (Rutgers), Muffet McGraw (Notre Dame) and Harry Perretta (Villanova) were in the conference.

“There was a period of time where … when I was in school, when you could maybe argue that the SEC had more talented teams overall,” Bird told reporters. “But then you look back, and it was like, between us, Notre Dame and Rutgers — my four years, those teams were always in the Final Fours.

“So we might have been a little on the top-heavy side, but then you zoom out a little bit more … there was a bunch of BIG EAST teams that were in the mix. We were getting, like, three, four, five, six teams at times [in the NCAA Tournament]. So I think for a while we were kind of holding it down in terms of what BIG EAST basketball would be.”

Bird’s iconic shot in 2001 epitomized the rivalry between the nation’s two premier programs at that time, which is at the center of the book Bird at the Buzzer, which also describes what each program experienced throughout the season leading up to that moment.

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Bird left campus with several individual accolades — the 2002 BIG EAST Player of the Year, Naismith Player of the Year, Wade Trophy winner, AP National Player of the Year and USBWA National Player of the Year, along with being a three-time Nancy Lieberman Award winner as the nation’s top point guard. UConn’s third title at that time also brought the Huskies into rare air as the only other team in the NCAA era besides Tennessee to have more than two national championships.

“I think my class, the four years that I played here, and then you move to like Diana’s class, on the success they brought, there is an awareness of the program had definitely put itself on the map with the [1995] championship was but was still trying to build,” Bird told reporters.

“You fast forward to [Breanna Stewart]’s freshman year [in 2012], and she’s like, ‘Oh, we’re gonna win four in a row.’ And that became like the new bar. So I feel like with any program that has success, each generation kind of has to do their part. And when we came along, I think it was our part to continue to build on top of what Rebecca [Lobo], Jen Rizzotti, Jamelle [Elliot] and so forth, what they started. And so we were just kind of adding to that.”

International icon

Bird left Storrs as UConn’s career record-holder for 3-point field goal percentage (45.9) and free throw percentage (89.2), records she still holds today. She compiled a 136-9 record in her four seasons at UConn, a 93.7 win percentage. Days after winning the 2002 national championship in San Antonio, Bird became UConn’s first-ever No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft. 

In her 20-year career in Seattle, Bird was a WNBA-record 13-time All-Star, a five-time All-WNBA First Team selection and a four-time WNBA champion (2004, 2010, 2018, 2020). She’s the WNBA’s all-time assist leader (3,234), and a statue of her now stands outside Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle.

As a member of the U.S. Women’s National Team, Bird is a five-time Olympic gold medalist (2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) and four-time World Cup champion (2002, 2010, 2014, 2018). During her final Olympic appearance at the 2020 Tokyo Games, she had the honor of leading Team USA into the Opening Ceremony. 

In his remarks as part of the ceremony, Auriemma, who had the chance to coach Bird as head coach of the U.S. National Team (2010-16), called Bird “the greatest point guard ever in the history of basketball, men’s or women’s.”

Bird was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2025.

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Bird continues to build her legacy off the court. In May, she was named the first managing director of the USA Women’s National Team. In 2021, she co-founded Togethxr — a woman-centered media group — alongside three other influential women athletes. In December 2022, alongside fiancée Megan Rapinoe and in partnership with Togethxr, Sue launched a production company called A Touch More. She’s also a member of the Seattle Storm’s ownership group and an investor in the NWSL franchise NJ/NY Gotham FC.

While Bird continues to build her legacy off the court, her on-court legacy in Storrs and beyond is fully cemented. With her number now in the rafters of the winningest women’s college basketball program in the nation, generations of future Huskies will know of the one-of-a-kind legacy of No. 10.

“Even though nobody else will wear [No. 10], I feel like when I come in here, hopefully when you all come in here, and you see that number — now it’s all of ours, so we can all share in it,” Bird said.