When Sue Meet Dee | Ep. 2 | Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi: The Greatest Duo | Nike x TOGETHXR

What was the vibe? So right before he met Dee? So, in the year 2000, I just finished my second year. Sue

bird

. We just won a national championship. We are on top of the world. I'm heading into my third year. I'm buying a cell phone for the first time, literally. I mean, literally. I wonder, what did we do before? I don't know, but somehow we made it work. And we have this recruiting class coming up. So the first time I met Dee, she was a senior in high school, I was a sophomore in college, and she came on the recruiting trip.

She's the only recruit in the history of recruits where the coaches said, "Make sure she has a good time." When you're a recruit in Connecticut, you always go to Coach Auriemma's house for dinner, like that's a basic thing. And Miss A cooks and the whole team goes. You get the feeling that this is really a family. So I drove to Coach Auriemma's house in Sue's car. She gets into the car. I have, I don't even know, a 1992 white Toyota Camry where you had to stick the tape into the cassette to use the CD player. And she said, "Oh, do you have a CD player?" She says, "I have a CD." I say, "Okay." Then she gives us her CD and puts it in.

It was all west coast rap. And then she says, "You can keep it." And I said, "Okay, thank you." Get the (beep) out of here. It was funny, I mean, Sue, the minute you

meet

her, you know, she's very reserved and I'm the complete opposite. So I think I scared her a little bit, probably. In fact, I'm very shy. Definitely dip your toe in the water before jumping into the type of person. I was a little more reserved and waiting to feel it before jumping in with her. We always got along and we were forced to get along because after my freshman year, I was like, okay, this is your guys' team.

What will you do with it? So I had to learn very quickly and you know, Sue was always there helping me and making sure of the things that she needed to learn. For me, a big part of it was figuring out what kind of leader I could be, what fits my personality. And I don't know if I knew it at the time, I definitely didn't know it to be honest, but I started to realize that how I could lead was just by being consistent and leading by example. I'm not the vocal leader you see, like rallying the team to rally and shout.

Sometimes, but that's not who I am naturally. But what I'll do is put my arm around you and maybe guide you through some things. There was always this calm about Sue. And the only thing to this day is that she is more worried about you than herself. She will always try to put you in the best position to succeed. And I mean, she can pass her (bleep) hers. Sue makes very difficult passes look easy. There's something to be said about just being able to pass the basketball, to make it all work. And she has always been willing to do it.

On the court, I like to make sure everyone feels good because if you feel good, you play well. So all you want is for people to feel good. And I think with Dee, because we were in the back together and it was our job as a tandem to do that, we really helped each other in a lot of ways. It didn't just go one way, it went both ways. Coach Auriemma was an assistant on the Olympic team in the 2000 Olympics. He kind of takes me aside somewhere and says, "You could be the next starting point guard on the Olympic team.

If you want it, it's there. It's there." for you to take." When I finished college, that put something on the map for me, right? So to fight, he knew what the next step was. And then as my senior year came to an end, I was told left and right that he was going to be number one. So it was very clear at that time that he was going to play in the WNBA. The first pick of the 2002 WNBA draft, the Seattle Storm selected Sue Bird out of the University of Connecticut. We are the first generation to go to college knowing that the WNBA exists, to then play a college season, be selected in the draft and play a full career.

And we kind of created that path that is now known as the norm and is something that I value more than any championship.