On Monday, Lindsay Whalen announced her retirement, and on Sunday she will play
her final regular-season game at Target Center. With the playoffs days away and
Whalen’s new career as Gophers head coach looming, she agreed to share memories
of her career. Here are 13 thoughts from No. 13, a few thank-yous and an IOU:
By Lindsay Whalen : Special to the Star Tribune
1. First thank you goes to Coach T [Mike Thibault] for drafting me. I knew he
was going to; he came to watch me in the Bahamas over Thanksgiving break in my
senior year. Now, he got to go to the Bahamas. But he still was watching me play
instead of being at home with his family. So I figured he was serious.
I did want to stay home at the time after the run to the Final Four, but going
to Connecticut was the best thing for me. I grew as a person. He taught me how
to be a pro. I always think back to one conversation we had that helped take my
game to another level. It was right after my third season in the league and we
had lost to the Detroit Shock in the WNBA semifinals, the first time we hadn’t
made the Finals in my time there. For me, personally, it was hard. I was coming
off reconstructive ankle surgery that season. As any athlete knows, that first
year playing after a major surgery is very difficult.
After that season he challenged me to get in the best shape of my life. He
wanted me to get leaner, faster, stronger. He knew I was entering the prime of
my career and he wanted to challenge me. As an athlete you think you’re already
doing everything you can to be a great player.
It wasn’t the easiest conversation, but I am forever grateful. Because once I
got myself in that condition, to play at that level, I was runner-up for the
WNBA MVP and first-team All-WNBA in 2008. He saw something in me I did not see
in myself. And that’s the definition of a great coach and mentor. Thank you,
Coach T!
2. Thank you to Coach [Cheryl] Reeve. The 2010 season was my first back in
Minnesota. It was also the first season there for Coach and Becky [Rebekkah
Brunson]. We went through so many close losses that year. But I think we would
all point back to that season as something we had to go through to have the
success we had later.
We had one meeting in particular that I will never forget, in Coach’s office,
after the All-Star Game in 2010. This conversation would change my career and,
to be honest, my life. I had made it to a Final Four in college and two WNBA
Finals but did not win a championship. I had never, as a player, been able to
break that threshold. I always felt so much pride in being an underdog, and
underrated. Those feelings carried me and my teams a long way, but never to the
top. So, it went something like this: She asked me what I averaged during the
2008 season when I was first-team All-WNBA. And then she asked me to average
that stat line in practice. Allen Iverson would have been beside himself.
Practice? We’re talking about practice. Yes, in practice. So, my goal was to
average 15 points, six assists and five rebounds in practice. This was when I
truly started to realize as a player that how you practice is how you play.
Those habits you create every day in practice determine how you perform. I’d
always practiced hard. But now it was so much more focused.
Every day I had a mission, a goal. I was already driven, but now it had to go to
another level for our team to be successful. My shooting percentages began to
rise, my scoring, assists and rebounds came along with it. That fall I made my
first USA Basketball national team and we won a gold medal at the 2010 World
Championships. Four WNBA championships and four gold medals later I guess you
could say I am thankful for that and the many other conversations me and Coach
Reeve have had over the years. She turned me into a champion. I was always an
underdog and loved that role. But being a champion is a lot more fun! Thank you,
Coach!
To read Lindsay’s 11 remaining thank yous, and her special IOU, go to
StarTribune.com.
