I'd go in my room and I put on ESPN,
and I didn't even know where Connecticut was.
And for some reason, I just religiously watched them.
My mom really wanted me to stay home and go to UCLA,
but at the end of the day,
it was something I had to do for myself.
When I went on my recruiting trip, we get there at night,
and my mom's like, "There's no streetlights here,
there's no traffic here,
where are they taking me?
There's no people."
I'm like, "Mom, it's the middle of the night,
people are sleeping."
But then when we woke up,
it was probably more of a culture shock.
Kind of in the middle of the forest, from Connecticut,
it was being in a different country.
And when you're recruit at Connecticut,
you always go to dinner to Coach Auriemma's house.
So I actually drove to Coach Auriemma's house
in Sue's white Camry,
and had the CD Walkman with the tape I used to plug in.
And you can't quite call it
when you meet Sue for the first time.
You really don't know if she likes you,
she wants to be around you,
doesn't wanna be around you,
and I'm kinda like the complete opposite.
Now, we're talking about confidence?
There's not many 17-year-olds
who are going on their recruiting trip
and just jumping in the middle of the circle
on the dance floor at a college bar.
But that was Dee.
Which was probably frightening for her.
Yeah. I don't even know if I liked her either.
No, I'm joking.
She's incredibly charismatic, infectious,
and right away, you caught onto that.
She's very serious,
she's very intelligent when it comes
to the things that she says and when she says them,
and I was a freshman,
so I was probably outta my mind in a lot of things I said,
but the first week in Connecticut,
in a lot of ways, it was learning a new language,
new food, different cultures.
And people were like, "What are you Cuban? Dominican?"
I was like, "What are these people talking about?"
It's those awkward times
where you're trying to figure out who you are.
And then you throw in being on the basketball team,
which we all know at Connecticut,
it's like you're part of the Beatles.
So there's this extra added pressure.
Dee came in like, just has like a looseness about her,
doing her thing, flashy,
and coach, that did not,
Coach Auriemma, they did not vibe in that way.
It was too loose, and practices are hard.
So Dee did have a very tough freshman year.
More pressure!
Get the hand out!
God, he was just so hard on me.
There was not one day where he would just let me slack off
or make a mistake and not hear about it.
He put you in these situations that were impossible to win,
we're gonna go three on five,
I'm like, "There's five defenders
and we're never gonna win."
Felt like I couldn't keep up.
And I didn't play a lot my freshman year.
I was deep in the bench.
I was watching a lot,
wanting to play and not knowing how to get on the court,
when you see yourself in that position
where you're just not figuring it out,
there was days where I was really miserable.
I didn't know if I was gonna ever get out of this
kind of black hole that I was in.
And Sue was always right there,
helping me and making sure
of the things that I needed to learn pretty quickly.
Another three for number three!
And a lot of it was,
you have to learn how to be a good teammate,
you have to learn how to work hard,
it was these skills that set you apart.
She coulda easily not helped me,
which is the case for a lot of people.
One of the bigger jumps is from high school to college,
'cause now you're surrounded by all these people
who are state champs,
all these people who are MVPs, you're not special.
And yet, she always just came across like,
I belong here, this is what I do,
and clearly she was right.
39 and 0, Connecticut is perfect!
The Connecticut Huskies
win three National Championships in a row!
Taurasi will be the newest member
of the Mercury .
She's standing at the corner
of destiny and history,
Taurasi for the record!
I spent my whole life playing basketball,
and sometimes I think,
"Well, what if I would've played soccer?"
But I guess I made the right decision,
we'll never know.