Rebecca Lobo was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame last night. Lobo was easily one of the greatest players in college basketball history, leading the Connecticut Huskies to an undefeated season and an NCAA Championship in 1995, and winning just about every individual award there is at the conclusion of that season.
Lobo’s speech at the induction ceremony last night was a classic, delving into her history in the sport and as something of a trailblazer in the broadening in popularity of the women’s game. It also included a pretty savage own of her brother, a Connecticut judge whose own basketball career was nowhere close to as successful as his little sister’s; and a brutal story about the circumstances of her initial encounter with then-Sports Illustrated writer Steve Rushin, who is now her husband and the father of her four children. But the best highlight is a brief story Lobo shares at about the 4:25 mark of the video above:
When my oldest daughter was about five years old, it was March Madness, so I was on the road calling a basketball game, and my husband was watching the UConn men’s team. And my five-year-old came in and she looked at the TV and said, “Daddy, are those boys playing basketball?”
And he said, “yes, they are.”
And she said, “I didn’t know boys played basketball, too!”
The whole thing is great, and you should watch it from start to finish.