Yuen: Paige Bueckers the superstar teaches us how to be an elite human

Plenty of youth sports parents would love for their kids to achieve athletic greatness. Chances are they won’t grow up to be elite players. But they can grow up to become elite human beings — who stay grounded, stand up for others and lift up everyone around them.

They can grow up to become a little more like Paige Bueckers.

This week my family and I watched the Minnesota native moments after she was announced as the WNBA’s No. 1 overall draft pick. We shushed our squirrely sons and leaned closer to the TV. “Listen to what she has to say!” my husband implored.

“I didn’t do it alone. It took a village,” Bueckers said, explaining how she overcame debilitating injuries to win a national title.

The former Hopkins High School sensation couldn’t help but choke up when she spoke of her University of Connecticut teammates. “They changed my life,” she said. “Those are my sisters.”

Bueckers is going to continue to make enormous contributions to this world, and I’m not even talking about her phenomenal basketball skills. She models a rare breed of leadership and devotion to community that can inspire us all to do better.

When her Muslim teammate and roommate Jana El Alfy fasted during Ramadan, which coincided with this year’s March Madness, Bueckers routinely got up before dawn to cook El Alfy breakfast. Why? Bueckers knew it’s easier to get through something tough when you have somebody by your side.

The point guard constantly gives credit to her family, teammates, coaches, trainers and God when she could just as easily absorb the individual accolades. She seems on cloud nine when a teammate outshines her in scoring. In fact, I’m sure she would not be happy that this whole column is about her.

And on draft night, Bueckers used her acceptance speech to urge WNBA teams to pick her UConn teammates Kaitlyn Chen and Aubrey Griffin, moves that she said “would be genius.” (Both Chen and Griffin were indeed selected that night in the third round.)

As parents, most of us who sign up our kids for sports don’t think they’re destined for D-I scholarships or brand endorsements. We say, at least, that we want youth sports to ingrain in our children the virtues of teamwork and sportsmanship. In Minnesota, we are beyond lucky to claim a superstar who exemplifies the kind of character we would be over the moon to ever see in our kids.

Let’s face it: Not all professional athletes, or even our elected leaders, are positive role models. And in this TikTok-driven culture that prizes influencers and individuals over teams, Bueckers would have us think more deeply about the power of the village.

Was Bueckers born freakishly selfless? Her former youth basketball coach, Tara Starks, remembers the first time she watched Bueckers play. Back then, Bueckers was about 9 or 10, and Starks was scouting fifth-grade players for her AAU team. At an age when most kids hound the ball and shoot, Bueckers stood out for her passing ability and for the genuine, hyperactive joy she derived from delivering assists to her teammates.

“She’d make these Magic Johnson-type, no-look passes, maybe a little behind the back,” Starks recalled. “She would go ecstatic when her teammates scored. It was very unique. ... I was like, ‘Wow, this kid is good.’”

That doesn’t mean Bueckers always listened.

In about seventh or eighth grade, Bueckers frustrated her coach during a game by continuing to pass the ball to teammates who weren’t able to finish the job. Starks remembers huddling the girls together and urging Bueckers to take the shot herself and just score.

After the circle broke up, Starks witnessed Bueckers put her hands around a couple of her teammates and whisper to them: “I’m gonna pass it to you anyway.”

“That little butt,” Starks thought to herself.

It was around that time when Bueckers’ on-court prowess started to draw national attention. As cameras descended onto Twin Cities gyms where she played, Bueckers told the film crews to make sure to capture clips of her teammates as well, Starks said.

Bueckers showed up for her longtime coach when several adults did not. When Bueckers was in high school, Starks, a Black woman, was told by her youth basketball club’s director that she was going to be replaced by a white man. Starks remembers disclosing to Bueckers that she would no longer be able to lead the girls she nurtured and developed since the fifth grade.

“Oh, heck no. Team meeting!” Bueckers responded, who pulled out her phone and proceeded to call her teammates.

Bueckers made it known to everyone that she wouldn’t abandon Starks. Eventually Starks and Bueckers branched off to join the Minnesota Metro Stars Basketball Club and brought several teammates from the old program with them.

“I don’t think she realized how much that meant to me, as a 16-year-old young lady fighting for a Black woman,” Starks said.

Starks felt that she was being discriminated against because of her race and gender. Maybe Bueckers didn’t fully grasp the magnitude of the situation at the time, Starks said, but she understood it was wrong. “All she knew was, ‘This is the coach who’s had my back, and I want to stay with her.’ ”

Many of the people who have molded Bueckers as an athlete and human were Black women, Starks said. So Starks wasn’t surprised when Bueckers once again leveraged her platform and power to honor them. In 2021, she accepted an ESPY award for best college athlete in women’s sports in a speech imbued with a maturity and wisdom far beyond that of most 19-year-olds.

“With the light that I have now as a white woman who leads a Black-led sport and celebrated here, I want to shed a light on Black women,” said Bueckers. “They don’t get the media coverage that they deserve. They’ve given so much to the sport, the community and society as a whole and their value is undeniable.”

Watching from home, Starks knew that Bueckers was talking about Black women like her — the friends and moms and coaches who reminded Bueckers to bundle up before going outside or taught her how to pay a bill in restaurants. Starks said Bueckers has learned to grow into her voice, one that she knows she must project to protect her village — and that includes her brother. The two share a dad and her brother’s mom is Black.

“She doesn’t love anybody more in the world than her little brother, Drew, and Drew is the same complexion as me,” Starks said. “To understand that [racism] can impact him, she realized it’s her job to speak up.”

Starks, now the girls’ varsity coach at Hopkins, led her team to a state title this year. Bueckers was among the first to text her, elated.

And after Bueckers was drafted by the Dallas Wings this week, Starks said her former player deserves all the blessings she’s received. “I couldn’t be more happy to see her live out her dreams,” Starks said.

Thanks to her endorsements, Bueckers is already a millionaire before her first WNBA game. She’ll be the newest star who will push the tide of women’s basketball to even greater heights. Many have talked about how this moment in the sport will profoundly open doors for girls.

But what’s often left out is what the appeal of women’s basketball is already doing for little boys. They are battling on playground courts, boasting about how they can “shoot threes like Caitlin Clark.” You can hear them squeal and celebrate: “Paige Buckets!” Female basketball stars are heroes our boys emulate in a way that children of my generation could never dream of.

So when someone like Paige Bueckers comes around, a generational talent on and off the court, parents like me watch. We listen. And we’re grateful our kids are paying attention, too.