UConn women’s basketball legend Sue Bird announces her retirement

Sue Bird had “an inkling” before the 2022 WNBA season started that this would be her last. The UConn women’s basketball legend didn’t want to announce anything just yet, though. She was grappling with the decision and had to be absolutely sure.

Bird contemplated things more as training camp and the season got underway. Until, eventually, she knew with certainty.

“I’ve really deep down known for a while now,” the 41-year-old Bird said. “So then it just became, well alright when do you want to say it?”

Bird officially announced her retirement from professional basketball on Thursday after 21 years with the Seattle Storm in the WNBA.

“I feel like I’ve played as long as I can at a really high level, both physically and mentally,” Bird said while fighting back tears at a press conference later that day.

Widely considered the greatest point guard in the history of women’s basketball, Bird has won a record five Olympic gold medals, four WNBA championships, two NCAA championships with the Huskies, and five EuroLeague titles. She’s the WNBA’s all-time assist leader with 3,114 — over 500 more than any other player — and has also been selected to a league-record 12 All-Star games. No player in league history has had a longer career.

“I do think longevity is a big part of my career,” Bird said. “I hope other players can see a career like this one, see the length of it, see the success of it and know that they can do it, too. Because not that it’s not going to be easy, but it’s doable, right? There’s ways in which you could play a very, very long time. And hopefully, I’m one of the athletes that I helped start that narrative in women’s basketball. So that’s something I’m definitely proud of.”

Bird has been honored on each of the WNBA’s milestone teams, including the All-Decade Team (2006), Top 15 Players (2011) and Top 20@20 (2016). She was named to the W25 team in 2021 as one of the 25 greatest and most influential players in league history.

Retirement has been on Bird’s mind for some time now. She’s talked publicly about how big of an influence the “One more year!” chants from fans after the Storm were eliminated by the Phoenix Mercury in last season’s playoffs had in her coming back for 2022. Signs indicated this season would be her last, now we officially know it is.

Bird went back and forth on when to announce the news. It wasn’t until she started preparing for the Storm’s current road trip, which is capped by a game in her home state of New York against the Liberty, that she started seriously thinking about making things public.

“I feel like for every athlete, sometimes it really just comes down to you know when you know,” Bird said. “There isn’t necessarily a recipe for it, you just know when you know. And now that I know and this New York game is coming, I get to share it with my family, my friends, which I’m excited about it. It was the right time for me.”

Bird told her Storm teammates during a dinner Wednesday night, followed by the coaches on Thursday morning. There was a small group of other people who knew as well, including UConn head coach Geno Auriemma.

The retirement announcement comes in the same state in which Bird first rose to the national spotlight and saw her career take off: Connecticut. The Storm play the Connecticut Sun on Friday night.

“It wasn’t necessarily planned but at the same time it’s special that it happened this way. I’m thankful that it happened this way,” Bird said. “When the schedule comes out, there’s two games that I circle, right, mentally: New York game and the Connecticut game. And that’s because they feel like homecoming. I know that I’m gonna get the support, I know that I’m going to be able to play in front of people that really watched me grow up, right. And that’s really special to me.”

Bird joined UConn from Long Island, New York, in 1998 as part of a dynamic recruiting class alongside Swin Cash, Tamika Williams and Asjha Jones. She was sidelined most of her first season in college with an ACL injury but went on to lead the Huskies to three Final Fours and two national titles.

For all the talent that has come since her days in Storrs, Bird still holds the program record for career 3-point percentage (45.9%) and free-throw percentage (89.2%). Her 231 assists in the 2001-02 season remain the most dished out by any Husky in a single season.

“There certainly isn’t anything that Sue left undone or to prove,” Auriemma said. “There’s going to be a lot of stories written and comparisons made about her and everything she’s done. It really is no exaggeration to say, I don’t think in our lifetime of watching basketball, that we’ve seen anyone play that position at a higher level and for a longer period of time than Sue has.”

After UConn won its second title under Bird in 2002, she was drafted No. 1 overall by Seattle, where she has spent the entirety of her career in the WNBA.

Bird has been with the Storm for 21 of the team’s 23 seasons of existence, playing in 19 of them. She’s scored or assisted on 27.5% of every basket scored in the franchise’s history, even with the four seasons she didn’t play in 2000, 2001, 2013 and 2012. She led Seattle to its first WNBA championship in 2004, and did so again in 2010, 2018 and 2020.

As of her retirement announcement, Bird is the only player in WNBA history to play in at least 500 games, starting in each of the 559 in her career. She also ranks second in career 3-pointers made (965), fourth in steals (700), and seventh in points (6,639).

Across her 19 seasons in the WNBA, Bird has career averages of 11.9 points, 5.6 assists, 2.6 rebounds and 1.3 steals per game, while shooting 39.2% from 3-point range. Through 10 games in the 2022 season, Bird is averaging 7.8 points, 6.6 assists, 1.9 rebounds and 1.3 steals per game.

As for once the season ends and her playing career is over, Bird said she doesn’t know what exactly life holds next.

“That’s really the beauty of it,” Bird said. “One quote I always come back to, and I’ve said this before, is when Derek Jeter retired he said he was looking forward to being a young person again. So I realize 41 is actually young — currently I don’t feel that way in my line of work — so it’s really exciting to know that what’s ahead of me, I can be young again, I can kind of try new things and see what’s out there.”

Still, there’s a sadness for Bird that her career is coming to a close. Most notably, she’s going to miss the schedule, purpose and grind that comes with the day to day of being a professional athlete, as well as the team moments.

“I’ve been doing this since I was 5 or 6 years old, it’s really all I know,” Bird said. “So of course, I’m sad. It’s a little bit of like a mourning knowing that I’m gonna miss it, but I mean have no regrets. I feel wonderful about my career and the people I’ve met, the things we’ve all accomplished.”