NEW ORLEANS — My first memory of the Cal women’s basketball team was me anxiously waiting in the Haas Club Room to hear first-year coach Lindsay Gottlieb and the players speak before the 2011 season started 18 months ago.
As Gottlieb walked to the podium, I remember thinking how she looked far too young to lead a Division I basketball team. As she began to speak at a lightning-fast pace, I remember scribbling illegible notes to keep up.
But the biggest takeaway from that day for me was the genuine excitement that pervaded the room, from the coaches and players. Players and coaches of other sports all say before the season that they are excited to start, but I could have sliced through this team’s enthusiasm that day with a knife and served it on plates.
And for the next 18 months, I covered the team, following their play from Berkeley to Stanford to now, in New Orleans. And through the next 18 months, the eagerness in that Haas Club Room never faded — it only grew.
As the women’s basketball beat reporter last year, I had lots of fun covering the games and interviewing the team. Gottlieb and the players had nothing to hide and shared a wealth of information with me, making my job easier.
But that genuineness of the team won me over underneath my reporter’s facade. Their camaraderie, openness and on-court success made it hard for me to remain truly indifferent.
Despite ceding the beat to new writers this year, I followed the team closely and was always impressed at the rate of its growth. Last year, I was in the upper press box at the edges of Maples Pavilion, getting excited as Cal took Stanford to overtime; now, the Bears were slaying Stanford-sized goliaths, including Stanford itself at Maples, left and right.
Now, here I am in New Orleans, two days after Cal’s first-ever Final Four appearance in program history. The team achieved previously unreached heights, and as a person who saw the team grow under Gottlieb to become a Final Four contender, I found it incredibly rewarding to see.
I was there in the near-empty Haas Pavilion for the start of the Gottlieb era last year. I wanted to be in the New Orleans Arena covering the peak moment of Cal women’s basketball.
I wanted to save this column for after Tuesday after the Bears advanced to the title game. But that didn’t happen. On Sunday night, Cal’s lead slipped away in the final moments to Louisville.
My disappointment only multiplied when I saw Gottlieb and the players looking glum through the postgame press conference. The ride was over. The excitement was no longer there.
Despite the bitter taste of the season’s end, I wanted to remember this team from two angles. First, these two seasons were probably the best stretch in Cal women’s basketball history. Second, they were able to reach such unprecedented success with student-athletes who were passionate about their university and their fans no like others.
There were no better representatives to symbolize Cal in New Orleans and on national television than this team.
Once upon a time, before I started covering women’s basketball, someone older and wiser told me the two sacred rules of journalism. The first was to remain objective at all times. The second was to remain empathetic to your subjects.
I may be breaking the first sacred rule today with this column, but I couldn’t let this opportunity go by without saying the following words:
Congratulations to coach Gottlieb and the team for reaching the Final Four. It was one heck of a ride, and I was privileged to see it from beginning to end.
Seung Y. Lee covers men’s basketball. Contact him at [email protected] Follow him on Twitter @sngyn92.