April 18, 2011
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Gonzaga University women's basketball senior Courtney Vandersloot chronicles her journey to the Women's Final Four and the 2011 WNBA Draft in her final Talking Hoops With 'Sloot.
It has been a busy and amazing few weeks for me. I can't even put it into words. So, I have let assistant sports information director Liz Smith put together the blog this time as she was with me from the Women's Final Four to the Draft day. Enjoy!
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It started off as a journey, a journey I knew where it would lead but didn't know what was going to happen along the way. I would call the journey the encore to what was probably the most electrifying five months of women's basketball at Gonzaga.
The first destination on the encore ride was to Indianapolis.
I knew about two months ago I would be making the trip to Indianapolis for the Final Four. Courtney Vandersloot (CV or 'Sloot too many) had won the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award - the top 5-8 or under player in the nation - and would need to fly to Indianapolis to accept it.
So much happened between the moment I heard Courtney won the prestigious award and the journey east to Indianapolis. Moments that will stick with so many for a lifetime. The Bulldogs captured the hearts of a nation, exactly like the men did 13 years prior. They stole the show at the NCAA Tournament, not only with their exceptional play and run to their first Elite Eight but with the enormous support Spokane showered them with along the way.
For a moment, we believed the Gonzaga family would be making the trip to Indianapolis with Courtney, but alas that dream didn't come true. So, a week after the history making season came to an end with twelve-thousand fans cheering their thanks to a amazing group of players and coaches at the Spokane Arena, Courtney, her coaches and myself made the three time zone trip to Indianapolis, the location for the Women's Final Four.
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I don't think any of us involved in the historic run really grasped what was going on. We knew we had amazing support in Spokane - we felt and saw that every day, but I don't think any of us understood how national the love for Gonzaga went. Well, we found out pretty quickly once we stepped off the plan in Indianapolis that what our little school accomplished and what Courtney did along the way reached all corners of the nation.
I am not kidding you when I say Courtney Vandersloot is a rock star. It was so awesome to see kids run up to her and ask to have a picture taken with her - this happened when we were simply walking down the streets of downtown Indianapolis, eating at a restaurant or watching the games. Coaches from all over stopped dead in their tracks when they saw her; many told her what a great player she was, some told her how their point guards strived to be as good as her and a few told her how much they loved how she presented herself on the court and off. Yeah, they were saying that to our Courtney!
One of the most gratifying moments of the weekend was after Courtney was announced as one of the State Farm All-Americans (first in school history and West Coast Conference history). Jodie Kaczor Berry, Lisa Mispley Fortier and I ran up to the stage to embarrass her as much as we could and of course snap tons of pictures. We then heard a few girls ask her if they could get their pictures taken with her. The assistant coaches and I looked behind us to see who was asking…and low and behold it was three of the University of Connecticut players. UConn players, you know the team who won 90-straight games, won a ton of national championships; yep they were huge fans of Courtney's!
She did get to meet a ton of legendary coaches during the six-day journey in Indy, including Pat Summit, head coach at the University of Tennessee, who went up to Courtney and said "Hi, I am Pat Summit." Courtney just laughed and said "I know who you are." She also got to chat with UConn head coach Geno Auriemma; spent some time with Gary Blair, head coach of the National Champion Texas A&M Aggies and bumped into Sherri Coale, University of Oklahoma head coach at the Steak 'n Shake in town and Tara VanDeveer, head coach at Stanford University, who didn't notice her all dressed up at the Awards Show where she accepted her Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award (to the loudest cheers of the evening).
Now don't think Courtney got a big head during this. She is still as humble as she was the day she arrived on the Gonzaga campus. Like those little kids who sought out her picture and autograph, she was doing the same in Indianapolis…with one person in particular - Kara Lawson, ESPN analyst, former Tennessee standout and current WNBA player on the Connecticut Sun. Kara was at the Final Four with fellow ESPN announcers Carolyn Peck and Trey Wingo. Courtney wasn't able to meet Kara during the semifinal games, so she made it a mission on Championship Tuesday to do so. And it happened! Courtney was able to say hi to Kara and meet both Carolyn and Trey, who told her it was a pleasure to watch her during the tournament. I don't think Courtney stopped smiling the whole game and that ear-to-ear grin returns each time you ask her to recount the meeting.
It wasn't just Courtney they loved, it was Gonzaga. The receptionist at the hotel told us when checking in how they were rooting for us during the tournament. I can't tell you how many times I heard people say "Congrats on the great season", or "It was so much fun watching your team". The best was an east coast fan saying "Do you know how many cups of coffee I had to drink to stay up and watch you guys play. But it was well worth it!"
Our small Jesuit school, nestled in the proud town of Spokane, Washington, resonated with so many.
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Courtney went from celebrating her collegiate career at the Final Four to preparing for her future as we hopped a plane (well two planes) from Indianapolis to Hartford, Conn., for the 2011 WNBA Draft, and the second part of our encore journey.
We arrived in Hartford on Thursday morning, five days before Courtney would find out where she would play and a day before the WNBA Orientation began with the 14 other invited draftees.
So, after we couldn't handle being cooped up in the hotel anymore - it had been seven days in hotels for us at that point - we took an adventure around Manchester; a suburb of Hartford. And I say adventure mostly because we got lost walking from the mall to the movie theater. Guess we should have noticed we weren't going in the right direction when we hit that residential area. An hour later, yep about five miles later, we finally found the theater.
Luckily Jodie was at the hotel when we arrived back from the movie. She would keep us from getting lost again, as she was Turtle in our Entourage (yes, we named ourselves after the characters of the show Entourage; Jodie Turtle, I was E and Coach Graves was Johnny), and brought new energy into the roadtrip. Courtney's parents arrived in town two days later and then Coach Graves the night before the draft.
Before we knew it, four days passed and it was the morning of the Draft.
I didn't get to see Courtney that morning as she and the other draftees headed over to the campus of ESPN early that morning. Her parents, Jodie, Coach Graves and I had breakfast together and a few hours later jumped on the bus that took us to ESPN. It oddly felt like we were heading to a game even though the season had ended two weeks before; Coach Graves was in his familiar front seat spot chatting it up with the bus driver, while Jodie and I sat across from him. I think each of us had those pregame butterflies and nerves going through us.
We arrived at ESPN about an hour before the Draft was supposed to start. Coach Graves, Jodie and I were ushered to the guest room while Courtney's parents headed to the studio to finally meet up with her. After a quick lunch and some conversations with other families the Draft began.
A lot was running through my mind during the early moments of the draft. The memory of the first time I met Courtney rushed vividly through - it was the day we took head shots and team pictures her freshman season. The thought of not being able to see her, and the four other seniors, play in a Gonzaga uniform again hit me like a ton of bricks. And how I was sitting at ESPN about to watch a member of the Zag family get drafted in the WNBA! Luckily I didn't have much more time to think as I looked up and heard Renee Brown say "And with the third pick in the 2011 WNBA Draft, the Chicago Sky select Courtney Vandersloot of Gonzaga University."
What an amazing moment. We were all proud, shocked, giddy, astonished, humbled, and 'jump out of our seats' happy. Courtney was going to Chicago!
I finally got to see Courtney about thirty minutes later in-between her media obligations. She looked so happy and content; all the stress and worry of the past 12 days had vanished. Her childhood dream had come true; how often can somebody say that? I gave her the biggest hug and told her how proud Gonzaga and Spokane was of her!
After a ton of media, in which she has become so articulate and composed doing, we journeyed back to the draft stage, took pictures with everybody, had some laughs and then finally headed back to the hotel.
A good celebratory dinner awaited the six of us. We ate, we talked, we reminisced, and we laughed some more. It was a perfect ending to a one-and-a-lifetime journey.
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I can honestly tell you that those twelve days of our epic journey were the most profound moments of my short 10-year career in the sports information field. I joined the Gonzaga women's basketball family five years ago, not really knowing what I was walking into, and have since fallen passionately in love with every aspect. So to see so many people know what I have known for five years - that the Bulldogs are a national powerhouse that should never be overlooked, that players from this so called 'mid-major' are All-American talented and that we have the most dedicated fans from near and far - is the greatest gift a SID could ever ask for.
Can't wait for the next journey…
