Amy Parsons: Hi, I’m Amy Parsons, President of Colorado State University and host of The Next 150 podcast. We have so many remarkable people in our community, and this is where we’re going to hear their stories, we’re going to get their perspective on CSU’s next 150 years, and gather their very best advice for today’s CSU students. Let’s get started, Rams.

Well, hello, Rams, and thanks for joining us on this episode of The Next 150. I am so excited today. I’m kind of bursting with excitement, honestly. I’m gushing a little bit. I’m here with one of my heroes, one of the greatest CSU Rams of all time, someone who needs no introduction, but her full amazing bio will be in the show notes. But I’ll just say a few things about the great Becky Hammon who’s joining us today.

Becky is someone who I have been cheering on since we were students here at CSU, watching her play at Moby Arena, following her through her professional career, through her coaching career. She is here on campus today because we are giving her one of the largest honors that we have at CSU, the Founders Day Medal, which we award to somebody who really exemplifies excellence and the values of Colorado State University and also somebody who’s had a profound impact in their field. And of course, nobody is more deserving of that than Becky who has had such an incredible impact in the field of basketball and women’s sports. And I am just thrilled that she’s sitting here with me today and joining us in the studio for this interview.

As a player at CSU, Becky set all of the records, including all-time points record, Colorado Sportswoman of the Year, and then of course she went on to sign with the WNBA where she played 16 seasons, six time All-Star, inducted into the Ring of Honor, and then she goes on to have this just insanely incredible coaching career that is so fun to watch right now.

Of course, she set all kinds of records and broke ground as one of the first women to coach in the NBA, the first full-time female coach in the NBA. Was incredible to watch, broke all kinds of glass ceilings. She’s in the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, ESPN Woman of the Year. And now as a coach of the Aces, she’s just coming off her latest national championship, won three of the four last national championships, the first rookie coach to win a national championship in the WNBA, and in 2023 was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, which we all watched and brought us to tears.

So I could go on and on, but Becky, we are so proud of you. We’re so proud that you’re a Ram, you’re a personal hero of mine and of so many of us here. And thank you for being back on campus and letting us honor you with our Founders Day medal.

Becky Hammon: Well, thank you for having me. I’m super excited to be here.

Amy Parsons: Yeah.

Becky Hammon: Obviously whenever I get back to Fort Collins, it’s always fun, very nostalgic for me to just step foot on the campus. Obviously going around with my son, too. I used to play there in Moby Arena. And I’m excited now because I haven’t been in the football stadium. So I’m excited to see that today. So thank you for having me.

Amy Parsons: I can’t wait for you to see the football stadium and we’re going to be actually giving you the medal on the field here at the end of the first. It’s going to be great. And I know our fans are going to be so excited to see you here at CSU. And when you’re back here at CSU, what do you remember about your time playing as a college player here?

Becky Hammon: Oh, man. I probably had too much fun.

Amy Parsons: Yeah.

Becky Hammon: It’s interesting going through… I played professionally for 16 years, so you’re always having rookies and players coming out of college and whatnot, and so many of their experiences were not that great. And I never realized how special it was because it wasn’t the norm where you just come in and you have four really great years of, not just basketball, but relationship building. My best friends that I had in college are still my best friends.

Amy Parsons: And some are here today,

Becky Hammon: Some are here today.

Amy Parsons: with you on campus.

Becky Hammon: So we just had a really special group of people that happened to be really good basketball players, too. And it was just, like I said, it’s nostalgic for me to come back and actually be here. Because I’ve seen them in other places, not necessarily in Fort Collins, so when we stepped foot in Fort Collins, obviously just a rush of memories come back, but I remember it just being fun.

Amy Parsons: Yeah.

Becky Hammon: It was so fun being a basketball player here, being an athlete here. We were talking the other night at dinner with my old coach. We were playing intramural flag football and I’m like, our coaches would have killed us…

Amy Parsons: Oh my gosh.

Becky Hammon: …had they found out. But I was like, I had more fun playing flag football with some of the frat guys. And luckily our scholarship people didn’t find out, and we made it through no injuries, but man, it was a blast. I just had a really good… So that’s the word that comes to mind when you ask me about my college career, is just fun.

Amy Parsons: And how did you come to CSU? You were in South Dakota.

Becky Hammon: Yes.

Amy Parsons: Right?

Becky Hammon: Yeah. So we had traveling teams back in the day. It wasn’t big like it was now, right? Like with social media, everything has changed. You’d have to send in like videotapes and like newspaper clippings and stuff to get recruited. But Kerry Deering that was a coach here at Colorado State leading up into ’95, I don’t know when exactly she got to Colorado State, but she was the one who recruited me to Colorado State. And she saw me at a couple tournaments, came and did a home visit, ended up staying at my house I think pretty much all day visiting with me and my family. And when I came on my campus visit here, she told me, she’s like, “You’re going to be the first All-American at Colorado State.”

Amy Parsons: Wow. Really?

Becky Hammon: She was right. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was right.

Amy Parsons: Oh my gosh. Three time All-American, I think.

Becky Hammon: Yep.

Amy Parsons: Yep, that’s right. Did you know when you were playing at CSU that playing in the pros was your path? And was that something you were aiming towards? It’s so different then, right?

Becky Hammon: Yes.

Amy Parsons: The WNBA then when you first started versus today.

Becky Hammon: Well, in ’95, the WNBA hadn’t even started. It started in ’97. Although, I mean, when I heard about it, that immediately became the goal.

At the time, they actually had the ABL, which Colorado had a team in the ABL, so I would go down and sometimes watch that professional team and then that league ended up folding. And then you had the accumulation of the USA women’s basketball team in the Olympics in Atlanta, 1996 Olympics. And that was, you had the ’95 Yukon team that went, I don’t know, 36 and 0 or whatever it was, won the national title with Rebecca Lobo and Jennifer Rizzotti, and then ’96 Olympic team. And then ’97, the WNBA started. So it was just like this huge influx of women’s basketball. And obviously I got to witness it and then also try to guard those players later on in my career.

Amy Parsons: I mean, you’ve always been known as, I think maybe seen yourself as kind of an underdog, especially at that time, just given height and everything. So what was it like for you making that transition from college player to pro in those early days?

Becky Hammon: Yeah, I mean, I wasn’t drafted. So when I got to New York as a free agent, I mean, I remember, and it was dial up internet back then. So it was like AOL coming on, and you’ve got mail. So it was still back in that era. And I just remember watching the draft happen and I just, my name was never called, and I was so upset because I felt like I was good enough to be drafted. Wasn’t the path for me. I took the path that’s probably… not very many travel. I mean, I don’t know how many free agents actually end up making rosters, not very many. Now that I’m sitting as a coach who has to make these decisions.

Becky Hammon: But luckily I got in with New York and it just, your game had to evolve. I think I got faster actually my first year going in there. If not, if I didn’t run every sprint hard, I would have came in last by a lot. So pushing yourself just to get better every year and faster, bigger, stronger, faster in the adjustment phase. But it was just, I wasn’t going to give them a reason to cut me that day. I was like, “I just got to make it through one day and then I’ll worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes.” And then that turned into eight years and some All-Star appearances, but just that figuring it out, finding a way, and honestly getting better every year. I felt like as a pro sometimes you can get stagnant. I felt like I worked really hard at getting better every year.

Amy Parsons: You played in the Olympics in there too, somewhere along the way.

Becky Hammon: Yeah, we traveled the world a little bit. I got some mileage on these knees now. They let me know about it every day, my knees do.

Becky Hammon: I was eight years in New York and then got traded down to San Antonio and my career really kind of took off from that trade and, went overseas. Russia offered me a passport because I knew the USA team didn’t have any intentions of taking me, so went and played with them. Yeah, I’m just like, “Whatever doors open, I’m going to shoot my shot. I’m going to walk through it, see what happens.”

Amy Parsons: While you were playing those 16 seasons professionally, did you always have in the back of your mind that coaching was your destiny, was your next step? Were you thinking about coaching as you went along or did it sort of grow on you through the years of thinking, “You know what I could do? ” Or when did that start to sort of take hold?

Becky Hammon: Well, towards the end of your career when you’re like, “Oh, I can’t do this for the rest of my life?” No, I’ve always kind of been a coach on the floor. Obviously because of my size, I really had to think the game and learn the game and kind of look at it differently and unorthodox, I would say, with angles and stuff, just learning how to drive and finish over bigger people. So I’ve always been a real student of the game, although I was dabbling in TV at the time, and I was doing some women’s basketball, calling some games for ESPN and whatnot, a little bit with the NBA and stuff.

Becky Hammon: But I kind of had an a-ha moment during one of those. I had torn my ACL in 2013 I think. And so I was doing some commentating on the side and I’m sitting there with the other guy that was working TV and the losing coach was walking past us in the hallway and their face was down, they were pissed off and he’s like, “See, that’s why TV’s the best. You never have to leave the gym a loser.” And I was like, “Yep. It’s not for me. I’m not doing TV because I can’t ever leave the gym being a winner.” And like, I knew right then I was like, “Yeah, I’m not going to do the TV thing. I’d rather coach, be in the fight, be in the battle, because I’m not one to really fight about the people in the battle. I want to be in it with you. I want to be in the trenches with you.”

Becky Hammon: And when I started really thinking about what my legacy, what I wanted it to be, it was more impact. I wanted to be able to say I impacted people and when I looked at that, it was my coaches and my teammates and stuff like that. So that’s the route I want to do, not the celebrity route of just being on TV and talking about the people doing the work. I wanted to be in there doing the work and in the battle and really having the day-to-day relationship building and process with whoever I’m leading at that time, whether that be young men or young women.

Amy Parsons: Well, you obviously made the right choice, and we’re all grateful for that. You went the route of coaching. I mean, what you’ve created now through coaching, I mean, it can only be described as a dynasty, what you’re doing. It’s just so inspiring to see.

When did you start thinking, “I can coach in the NBA. That I can be part of an NBA team and maybe be the first woman to coach in a NBA environment?”

Becky Hammon: Honestly, that road happened before the WNBA happened. So I was finishing up my playing career. During that year that I had my ACL, 2013, I had to stay in San Antonio in rehab. And so what I would do, I’d go to my rehab at 6:00 in the morning, get my rehab done, and then I’d zoom over to the Spurs practice where Pop had invited me to just start coming to every practice, every coach’s session. And I call it kind of like an intern year, but I think it was more of him just kind of observing the interaction between me and the guys, like, “How is this going to look?” He’s a real progressive thinker, forward thinker. And I remember having a conversation with Tony Parker, who’s a good buddy of mine, and he’s like, “Pop would hire you.” And I was like, “You think?”

Becky Hammon: I mean, it had never been done at this point, so we’re having these conversations, and I was like, “Yeah, maybe he would. Maybe he would pull that trigger and hire a woman.” Hadn’t been done. I don’t think anybody really knew how big of a deal it was going to be when we did it because to him it was just kind of like a basketball decision like, “Oh, she’s great with the team. She’s got a great feel. The guys respect her. Of course. Why wouldn’t I hire this coach?”

Becky Hammon: But obviously the woman aspect of it kind of blew everything up. I remember we were going to do just some local media after the announcement and a couple radio stations, couple local TV stations. When those things hit the airwaves, I mean, I got tired of seeing myself. I’m like, “All right, let’s move on, people, with all that.”

Amy Parsons: We didn’t get tired of it. We were super excited to see it.

Becky Hammon: Robin Roberts was flying out to come and interview me. It just kind of just blew up, and it was obviously amazing and obviously that opportunity, I was eight years with Pop, led to this one in the W. And I remember when I was thinking about taking the job, I told him, I was like, “I’m really considering this.” I said, “And not only that, I think I can win with this team.” And he said, “You got to go then.” And obviously, three out of four years winning a championship has been pretty special, but I have pretty special players, so that helps as a coach.

Amy Parsons: Yeah. You do. We’ll talk about that. I think all of Ram Nation are Aces fans, and we’re Spurs fans. We’re always fans of where you are.

Becky Hammon: Let’s go.

Amy Parsons: But those years that you were with the Spurs, I mean, what challenges and opportunities did you face that maybe people don’t know about, about being a woman in that role?

Becky Hammon: Yeah, it’s interesting because people always wanted to know how the guys were with me, the players. And I just always tried to give everybody a lot of grace in it because everybody always wanted to know my perspective. I’m like, “This is also new for them to have a female in their area, in their presence, in a space where no woman had really been.”

Amy Parsons: They might never have had a female coach in their entire career.

Becky Hammon: Now, I know they all got females yelling at them, whether it’s girlfriends, mothers, or aunties or someone, wives, but they never really had a woman in that space. And I would just say, they know Pop wasn’t a guy that played any games, and so the respect was always there with the players. And I think probably some of the biggest resistance came from people that are not basketball players. There was a lot of jealousy, I would say.

Becky Hammon: And here’s the thing. I kind of get it. My first year in the W, or in the NBA as a first year coach, and so people would look at it two different ways. Some people treated me as a first-year coach, which I was, and some treated me as a woman first, which I was. I’m like, both are correct. Neither one is a wrong answer, but it was just different people’s approach. And I wanted people to authentically be themselves.

Becky Hammon: We had an older gentleman that was on staff. He would open the doors for me. Great. That’s not wrong or offensive to me. Another coach would be like, “No, you’re a first-year coach. Get in the back.” Also, not wrong. So I really just tried to let people really be themselves because I want to be myself with every room I walk into and be authentic. And so I just really wanted that authenticity. I think if you don’t have it, it’s really hard to build relationships in an environment where it’s a very much dog eat dog kind of environment in the NBA. Everybody’s trying to move up.

Becky Hammon: But there was definitely some jealousy, some comments here and there, not from players really ever, but other people. But that’s fine. I could do it all wrong and I could do it all right. Somebody’s always going to have something to say. And that’s just, you have to know what you’re signing up for. But I had a really great experience. I can’t say that there was these huge obstacles. Were there obstacles? Yes. But not anything that is any kind of reason that would keep you from going through that door.

Amy Parsons: Yeah. Speaking of going through the door, I’ll probably get the quote wrong, but I know that when you were in the Hall of Fame ceremony and you were talking about, I think your quote was, for every time that you heard no or the door was closed was the number of times that you went in through the chimney or broke the window in order to get in. And you probably have some sense of what a role model you’ve become by doing that, by being so resilient and taking on those roles, succeeding in those roles and maintaining your authenticity and your true self in doing so. It’s really remarkable.

Becky Hammon: Yeah. I mean, if I can’t be me walking through the door, then the door’s not for me. And you just have to know that God has something else for you. And when that door is shut or that window is shut, like I said, I’m going to look through cracks and crevices. I’m going to figure it out and find a way to get where I’m supposed to be. And like I said, it’s definitely been the road less traveled or never traveled in my case.

Amy Parsons: The first to travel.

Becky Hammon: Yeah. And I think people, you can… It’s easy to get off, when there’s no path, it’s easy kind of to get off the path. And when you’re doing something that nobody’s done, and I think that’s one thing that people don’t understand about like trailblazers and people that are doing something for the first time. And there’s no roadmap. There’s some of this we just got to figure it out as we’re going, but there are nicks and scrapes along the way that people don’t ever really see. They just get to see this final product of me standing out on an NBA floor with these guys or me standing out there with my team now that I get to stand out.

Becky Hammon: But the persistence and the resiliency, most people are… I’m an average size person. Not everybody’s going to be 6’7, 6’8, 6’4, 6’3, and be able to just have that pure athletic talent that can take you places. Mine was just a grittier route. Had to work my way through it. And by the way, for me, it’s the most rewarding way because I know I earned it. Nobody handed me anything. I had hands helping me all the way, but nobody handed me something. So I feel like I valued my process through the whole thing.

Amy Parsons: Well, now as the head coach of the Aces, coming into that role and creating the dynasty and the national championships that you have, when you look back through your time at the NBA, at your time with the WNBA, your time even at CSU, I mean that gritty path, right?

Becky Hammon: Yeah.

Amy Parsons: What type of leadership lessons do you think you pulled all along preparing you now to be the national champion and to lead at the level you are today?

Becky Hammon: I just think, I mean, the main thing I think was just resiliency. I remember my first walk through at Moby Arena. We were coming from study hall, and me and Katie, who’s here, Cronin, who’s here with me now, we were walking through, and we were like, “One day we’re going to fill this up.” I think when we first arrived on campus, they were getting maybe 200 to 300 fans at a game. We’re going to fill this up and then I’ll be darned if we didn’t have that thing jam packed by the time we were seniors with a lot of excitement around women’s basketball, which really hadn’t happened yet, but we had our own little boom here before this huge boom is now happening. We were the hot ticket in town.

We would go to Outback Steakhouse back in the day, and some customer would like buy our dinner. We were like, “Oh, let’s order some crab legs. They’re going to buy our dinner? No way.” So we started having this following in Fort Collins and just this really great relationship with the fans and the people of Fort Collins with that team from that ’95 team to ’99 team was just really special years.

But resiliency, that’s the whole thing. I got knocked down plenty of times. It’s not about getting knocked down, it’s about getting back up and that ability to keep pressing forward.

Amy Parsons: Those Ram fans from the ’90s are still with you, have been with you all the way along. Now coaching really elite athletes, some of the most elite athletes in the world, some of the most elite coaches on your staff in the world. I love watching those games, seeing how much respect those players have for you, how you just command the floor and what’s happening on there. How do you coach some of the best people in the world? Where does that come from to be able to coach these elite players and coaches?

Becky Hammon: Well, I’ll say one thing you said, which is very true. How do you coach some of the best people in the world? You get really great people who happen to be the best players also. You get a really special dynamic team in the sense of just the quality of character that you have.

Becky Hammon: At the beginning of this season, every championship was different, right? A different set of circumstances, different set of challenges and just… I had dinner the other night with Pop, and he said, “This was your most brilliant year of coaching and it had nothing to do with X’s and O’s.” And he’s super right because this year was different in the sense of like it wasn’t about our defense or our offense. Even though I tweaked those things, and I love doing the X’s and O’s part, this was a challenge for me as a coach to, A, keep everybody on board, right? Because May and June, it wasn’t looking too good. I think the Vegas odds had us 100 to 1 to win the championship at this point.

Amy Parsons: Really?

Becky Hammon: Yeah. And so it was about keeping everybody on board, nobody jump off ship, we’re moving in the right direction and we just have to stay the course and learn about the process. And I told them, this process of losing and getting hammered on a couple occasions, it has to be building something that we’re going to need later, because your process is always going to be part of your purpose, and that resiliency and having to get back up after getting kicked and even embarrassed on some nights, like you got to get back up and go to work the next day. You got to look at yourself in the mirror. You got to look your teammates in the eyes and figure out who you’re going to be. And so we figured it out, eventually.

Becky Hammon: I tell them they aged me like 20 years this last year, but we got there, and we figured it out, but they really are just really great people and great character does matter in a locker room and we had great character. And if we didn’t, let me tell you, June, we fall apart. It’s too hard to maintain that kind of difficulty with bad character. And so there’s a lot of people that, a lot of really great basketball players who probably would probably help you on the floor, but I’m such a believer in team chemistry.

Becky Hammon: And I’ll tell you one thing about our CSU teams back in the day. We were not always the most talented, but we had the best chemistry, so we beat more talented teams because at the end of the day we played together, we believed in each other, and we had a lot of fun playing basketball. And I say it all the time, I want the happiest team because happy players make better basketball players.

Becky Hammon: Just like your employees when they come into work. If you’re happy and you enjoy your job, you produce better, you’re more productive, you have a different kind of energy when you walk into the building and that kind of energy and stuff is contagious. And when you’re seeing each other day in and day out for hours and hours and you’re competing, it can start to wear on you. So that high character really matters. And so there’s people that I don’t even bring into our group even though they’re tremendous basketball players because I don’t think chemistry and character wise they fit. And so sometimes you take a little less talent for that character and that competitiveness, but I got a couple players who got it all. So they have the character, they have the competitiveness, and they got the skills.

Amy Parsons: They’re fun to watch.

Becky Hammon: Yes. They are fun.

Amy Parsons: They’re sure fun to watch.

Becky Hammon: Yeah. They’re fun people. You’re never not going to have a good time with like A’ja and Chelsea, Jewell.

Amy Parsons: They’re like that all the time?

Becky Hammon: They are a good time. And people are kind of like, they don’t know how to take that at first. I’m like, that’s who they are. They’re just fun. If you’re having a party, you want them to come for sure.

Amy Parsons: Yeah. That’s good advice for any culture, I think, right? Any chemistry for any team that you’re leading, whether it’s on the court or it’s here at CSU.

Becky Hammon: Sure.

Amy Parsons: I have to ask you, it’s so much fun to watch you coach and obviously to win national championships. What’s it like for you right after you win a national championship? You’re working the whole season and then you get to the end and you win. Are you just wiped out? Are you traveling? Are you looking at next season?

Becky Hammon: I’m doing a little bit, but honestly, it’s like, it’s almost like a relief. Because you come to the Aces, I’m sorry, there’s an expectation, there’s a standard, and there’s pressure. I mean, you’re in professional sports, you better be able to do your job under an extreme amount of pressure. And so when you’re in those moments, you don’t feel them as much as you do afterwards. Now I think family and friends feel them in the stands in the moment, but down there you’re just doing your job, you’re kind of in your zone, you’re doing what you know best and doing what you do best. So it’s a lot more stressful on them.

Becky Hammon: So after we won this last year, I think I had maybe one or two beers and got on the plane and went back to Vegas. And I think my team was very calm. So I’m pretty sure that once they hit the ground in Vegas, they were going out somewhere. I don’t know. I know where I was going, which was home and to bed to try to sleep because I don’t sleep much during my season.

Amy Parsons: At what point in your year, like right now, are you planning for the next?

Becky Hammon: Oh, already. I mean, your wheels are turning.

Amy Parsons: You just take a minute to…

Becky Hammon: It’s actually probably my greatest strength and probably my greatest weakness is my brain and it just is going.

Amy Parsons: You’re immediately in it.

Becky Hammon: I’m going. It’s really hard for me to turn it off. I mean, I’m a basketball junkie. That’s what I do. We’re at dinner the other night, my mom’s like, “What are you doing?” I’m like, “Checking scores.” It’s just in me, and I quite honestly, it just always has been. I can’t explain it. You could ask my mom.

Amy Parsons: Yeah. Ask your mom. Where did it start?

Becky Hammon: It’s just always been there.

Amy Parsons: Yeah.

Becky Hammon: So yeah, I love my hoops.

Amy Parsons: Well, coming back to CSU and your time here, I think CSU’s always been a pretty good university for women’s sports. We really pride ourselves in supporting, whether it’s basketball, volleyball, soccer, track and field.

Becky Hammon: How is the volleyball team?

Amy Parsons: They’re awesome.

Becky Hammon: They’ve been awesome for like a long time, right?

Amy Parsons: They have been and Coach Kohan is amazing. We won the league last year.

Becky Hammon: Nice.

Amy Parsons: So we won the Mountain West last year. This is our last year in the Mountain West. As you might know, we’re moving into the Pac-12.

Becky Hammon: (Whistle.) That’s a big jump.

Amy Parsons: So in July of this year, CSU’s jumping into the Pac-12.

Becky Hammon: Well, congrats. That’s great.

Amy Parsons: Thank you.

Becky Hammon: That’s awesome.

Amy Parsons: So we’re really excited to be competing at the next level, putting all CSU sports on the next level. In the Pac-12, all of our women’s basketball games will be on national television. Our tournaments will be on national television.

Amy Parsons: So what advice do you have for me, leading the university, really invested in women’s sports, really wanting us to be a place that continues on our great legacy of supporting female athletes, how we can continue to do that, because I mean, with you and the WNBA having these big moments, big crowds, really people embracing it, we’re doing that at the collegiate level as well and feeding into that. So what else can we do?

Becky Hammon: I can tell you on the league aspect, we’re also looking at ways, how do we integrate the college game more and make that a smoother transition. So the fact that both sides are talking about it and kind of game planning for it is helpful. I’ll say this, just being invested in your product is the best thing you can do, the support, showing up, having conversations with the players and people that are out there. I mean, you’re in a leadership role yourself. I mean, the best thing you can do is build relationships because it’s about the people that you’re leading. And so putting them in the best situations possible to be successful, putting your coaches in the best situation possible to be successful, giving them the tools and support that they need around them to be able to create those environments so that everybody, when they walk out of a CSU gym after four years can say, “I had a really great experience at Colorado State.” Because I know that was my experience, and I really value my time here.

Becky Hammon: And the other thing that I really loved walking in here was I got to play all four years, and I think that was so valuable for me, was just, while a lot of other teams maybe went to bigger schools, you also rode the pine for two, three years. Man, I got on-the-job training the whole time. Coach Williams just threw me out there to figure it out. And so that was a great learning ground, but just being invested in the people that you’re leading, which sounds like you’re doing a good job, getting them on national TV, that’s huge. I mean, the eyeballs on the sport are a really big deal. So, congrats with that. That’s awesome.

Amy Parsons: Yeah. Well, anytime you want to come by and talk to the team and be in the stands, we’re so proud of you, obviously, and just proud of the legacy of women’s sports at CSU and what that can be in the future.

Becky Hammon: Got some pretty good swimmers here too.

Amy Parsons: We’ve had some great swimmers here, as well. Yeah. We’ve got some great legacies here at Colorado State, and we want to be leaders in the women’s sports movement, and we are selling out games. We’re getting a lot of students in the stands, and a lot of our culture in here is really thanks to you and your time and your legacy at CSU.

Amy Parsons: And so as we wrap up, student success at Colorado State is always our number one priority. Any words of advice for today’s young students as they’re starting their basketball careers, who may want to coach, may want to play pro, what they should be thinking about now as they start on the team?

Becky Hammon: I would just say valuing every day. Every day you have an opportunity to get up and get better. Every day you have an opportunity to impact your teammates. Every day you have the opportunity to be great. And so don’t let those days slip by. Actually, start stacking days and be intentional about it. If there’s an area that you want to get better at or you want to grow your knowledge in, be intentional about going after that. And I think just being present, maybe get off your phone. I think those are all…

Amy Parsons: That’s good advice.

Becky Hammon: Yeah. I have social media. I don’t really run it, honestly. And a lot of that is there’s two types of people on social media a lot of times, and that’s the people that are telling you all these terrible things and telling you all the great things. And I just think to try to keep your head and your mental health safe. You got two portals right here to your heart, and that’s your eyes and your ears. So just guard what you allow going through those portals of your eyes and your ears because that’s what’s going to permeate and take root in your heart. So just make sure you’re filling those up with good things.

Amy Parsons: That’s a great place to end. That’s great advice for me, for everyone.

Becky Hammon: Everybody.

Amy Parsons: Right in these jobs.

Becky Hammon: Everybody.

Amy Parsons: So Becky, thank you again for being here. Congratulations on the Founders Day Medal at CSU. And just always know that CSU and Ram Nation is behind you 100% and we’re so proud of you. And thanks for being back here at CSU.

Becky Hammon: Thank you.

Amy Parsons: And congratulations on the National Championship.

Becky Hammon: Thank you.

Amy Parsons: Thanks. All right. That’s a wrap. Go Rams.

Amy Parsons: Thank you for listening. I’m Amy Parsons, President of Colorado State University, and you’re listening to CSU’s The Next 150, where we explore what comes next for CSU by chatting with changemakers who are already leading the charge and shaping our next 150 years. I’m gathering their very best advice for today’s CSU students.

Amy Parsons: Stay tuned to wherever you get podcasts for our next outstanding conversation. Go Rams.