Skip to footer
Integrity
The Monitor's View

Why this basketball star shines on

For Diana Taurasi, her incredible success on the court came from an attitude of calm confidence and a love of others, helping draw new fans to women’s basketball.

|
AP
Diana Taurasi celebrates after making her 10,000th career point during a WNBA basketball game in Phoenix in 2023.
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

When Diana Taurasi, one of women’s basketball’s greatest stars, announced her retirement this week, it brought a chorus of praise from fans, competitors, and sports peers. She ends a 20-year career with the same attitude that has defined her greatness – a calm confidence that counters any setback. 

“Mentally and physically, I’m just full,” Ms. Taurasi told Time magazine. “That’s probably the best way I can describe it. I’m full and I’m happy.”

She should be full. After playing 565 games in the Women’s National Basketball Association, she leaves as the league’s all-time leading scorer with 10,646 points. She helped win three championships, two Finals MVPs, and a league MVP, and she proudly represented the United States for six consecutive Olympic Games, winning gold each time.

It is an understatement to say that Ms. Taurasi left an indelible mark on women’s basketball and helped grow women’s sports in general. Her name should be mentioned with the likes of Serena Williams in tennis, Megan Rapinoe in soccer, Simone Biles in gymnastics, and Danica Patrick in car racing. These women carried much more than themselves with each mountain they climbed via their individual sport. There is still room to go, but because of talents like Ms. Taurasi, newcomers in basketball like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese have bigger platforms with bigger benefits.

For those who don’t follow sports, Ms. Taurasi expressed characteristics that others sought to follow. She is humble and confident with swag on the court, but graceful in victory and defeat. Former teammates say that she empowered them as a leader.

Her coach during her time at the University of Connecticut, Geno Auriemma, says she has one ability unlike anyone else. “I’ve never been around anyone who is just immune to the pressures of the moment and just lives in the moment and has such joy and passion for the game and shows it on every possession,” he told The Associated Press in 2003.

Ms. Taurasi probably best explains her driving force. “As a little kid, being a kid of immigrants coming to this country, basketball always made me feel a part of something,” she told Time. “It always made me feel comfortable. It brought me to a place where, you know, I could love others. I could love myself.”

No wonder so many have loved her on the court and off. She’s an athlete in full, even in retirement.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
Subscribe

Give us your feedback

We want to hear, did we miss an angle we should have covered? Should we come back to this topic? Or just give us a rating for this story. We want to hear from you.

 
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Why this basketball star shines on
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/0227/Why-this-basketball-star-shines-on
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe