Before the UCLA Bruins women’s basketball team begins their NCAA tournament run on Saturday, Bruins star Lauren Betts wrote a piece for The Players’ Tribune, going in-depth about her battles with her mental health.
Those battles included a short time away from the UCLA basketball team during Betts’ sophomore season, which was her first season with the Bruins. Betts explained that during her absence, she was at a hospital.
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To say that Betts has bounced back would be an understatement. She returned that season and helped guide UCLA to the Sweet 16. The following year, Betts would lead the Bruins to their first-ever Final Four and win the first of two consecutive Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year awards. The show hasn’t stopped this year either, with Betts winning the Big Ten Player of the Year and helped UCLA to a 31-1 record entering the tournament.
Throughout her time at UCLA, Betts has spoken glowingly of Cori Close but in The Players’ Tribune, Betts expressed her gratitude for a couple of different women’s college basketball coaches.
“I’m lucky to have such supportive coaches in my life. Shannon LeBeauf from Rutgers, she was here at UCLA as an assistant coach, and she’s basically been another mother figure to me,” Betts wrote. “And Dawn Staley, she spoke to my mom a little bit while everything was going on as well. And I don’t think a lot of people know that. She’s been really amazing to me and my family through my entire basketball career.”
Dawn Staley going above-and-beyond shouldn’t be much of a surprise, but it is impressive that the storied coach took time to check in on a player from another program. Both UCLA and Staley’s South Carolina are No. 1 seeds in the tournament, with the two teams unable to play each other until the national championship game.
This article originally appeared on UCLA Wire: Lauren Betts expresses gratitude for South Carolina’s Dawn Staley
