Vice President for University Athletics Ray Anderson
On Head Coach Charli Turner Thorne
“Charli, 25 years, leading the Women’s Basketball Program, someone that was always intense, competitive, intelligent, and certainly a dedicated team member. Charli’s commitment and loyalty to this program has been unequivocal and her accomplishments will live in our record books forever. What I really appreciate about Charli, when I first got here and then shortly into my tenure, is how much she had done in such a tough women’s basketball conference. This conference is tenacious, it is not anywhere near an easy place to coach and recruit and work and she did it with unbelievable dedication and commitment for so many years. When I heard the news, it was given to me that Charli had determined that she was going to retire, I wasn’t surprised but it was still a jolt to me. Primarily because in all of my time here, I don’t recall one time that Charli and I had a conversation about when she might leave her job as the Head Women’s Basketball Coach at Arizona State. The reason in my mind that it never occurred is because Charli had earned the right through her two-plus decades of leading this program with great intelligence, ethics, and development of young women into leaders, but also unbelievable performers in the classroom that Charli had earned the right to determine herself with her family when it was time for her to step away. I want to be very clear, this is Charli’s time. Her decision, her family’s decision to step away and pass the torch. I couldn’t be prouder to speak on behalf Sun Devil Athletics, to thank Charli for her 25-plus years of outstanding service to this University and to your student-athletes. Charli, I’m delighted to be your AD and to introduce you again, this is your time.”
Head Coach Charli Turner Thorne
Opening Statement
“I’m retiring after 25 years. It has just been my honor to be here and serve and as Ray said, it’s just time. I just want to make a few comments and then we can take some questions. I had the great fortune of coaching and mentoring these young women for the past almost, three-decades and I am just forever grateful for them, believing in me and the culture we built here. The world’s a lot different now than when I started in 1996, but I’m excited to use this new chapter to continue to help people and hopefully serve our community here at an even grander scale, and maybe have a few off days in between every now and then. Reflecting back of course, we were all about winning championships, but I so appreciated that our academic achievements, our community service, our character, our players excelling beyond basketball. It was so appreciated by our administration, by our donors, by our alums, and by our fans. I sincerely hope that we continue with ASU women’s basketball to have a transformative and not transactional program. As I begin to thank all the people that I want to thank today, I just want to say that I am so grateful for the amazing memories, a lot of you have been a part of them, even the challenging ones that have helped shaped me to become who I am today. Guess I will start with the woman who brought me here, Lattie Coor, Kevin White, and the one and only Sandy Hatfield Clubb, who I told no to three times. I just appreciate so much of your persistence my friend in continuing to ask me to be a Sun Devil. I then want to thank Dr. (Michael) Crow for his support and unbelievable leadership. It’s so fun, it’s been so fun to recruit to ASU, a place where you can do anything you want to do, it’s just so special and he is an amazing leader for us. Vice President Jim Rund and Vice President Christine Wilkinson have been amazing supporters of our program so I just want to thank them. Then, I want to thank our athletic leadership. Ray, Jean (Boyd), Christina (Wombacher), all of the athletic administrators for everything that they’ve continued to do for me and our program. Obviously our success is because they want us to be successful. I want to thank all of the players, can’t name them all, all the players and the staff that I’ve had that have made it a rewarding and fulfilling 25 years. I wish I had time to list every one of them, I see a lot of our current team here today, thank you guys, love you. My staff in the back, Jackie Moore, Nikki Blue, Yvonne Sanchez, Meg Sanders, Diana Padilla our trainer, Steve Rodriguez our Sports Information Director, I just want to thank everybody. Jeff Munn, voice of Sun Devil Basketball, I think all my people know how much I appreciate them, but I really appreciate you guys for being here so I can really say thank you to all of them. There are so many people in athletics, I mean Jim (Hudson) in the band, Bill (Kennedy) in the 942 Crew, and cheer and Mark Gorski who works this building and never goes home - sometimes we have four baskets instead of two. I think they all know how much I appreciate them and I just want to give a shout out to Linda Vollstedt, you named this group Charli’s Angels, one of our athletic administrators, we had this incredible donar group that has been a huge part as to why we have sustained our success not only competitively but the other things that we talked about, the transformative things, the resources that our student-athletes have had. Our awesome fans who have supported us through thick and thin, you guys are amazing thank you so much for everything. Keep supporting ASU Women’s Basketball, please. Lastly and more importantly, to my family who is all here today, who honestly probably came to often second to my ASU family. I just appreciate their continued love and support. So when Quinn was about five, he said to me ‘Mom you spend more time with the sisters than you do with us’ , and he was right. They were just born into the Sun Devil family, Connor was born between an overtime game against Washington and U of A. Two doors down two hours apart from Sandy’s oldest son. Liam was born on Selection Show Sunday. A bunch of you would’ve been at my house while Will was at the hospital with me, giving birth and then we traveled three days later to the NCAA tournament. Quinn, I don’t know if you made it finally but I had to hold him in through Christmas and our Washington series after Christmas too to get through a few games. They grew up with this program, both Connor and Liam are finishing ASU degrees because this is such an unbelievable institution and they are Sun Devils through and through. I’m just so happy for this transition to allow them to be a top priority and my parents at home, Gloria and Jim Turner, that is definitely a part of my decision. We have the worst acronym ever invented, it was invented by me for our program, it’s one of our core values, it’s FEFS. It means Finish Everything Finish Strong and while from a basketball standpoint maybe we didn’t quite do what we wanted to do this year, I think on behalf of my staff and everybody…anybody that has ever coached knows your best coaching job is never your best record and I do feel like we emptied out, gave everything we had and it’s time.”
On what’s next...
“Well, take a breath, after 33 years of working every day I’m definitely going to go see my parents who aren’t doing well and spend some time. I’m going to look into a number of different things, maybe some broadcasting, maybe some writing, maybe some teaching at ASU, I don’t know I’ll just float that out there. Some consulting, I know Sandy’s got some gigs going on inside there. I’ve actually talked to a few people. I’m definitely not retiring, I will be working stiff, it’s just in my jeans, I’m good peasant stock. For right now, hopefully just take a breath.”
On the decision to retire...
“A lot of things aligned, and I think if you talk to coaches that have been in it a long time, you sort of know, maybe not a single day but culminating and I think for me, there is only one way to do this, it is either all in all out all the time, I gotta watch film, I gotta make sure I am available for people and these last few years were tough with the pandemic and all the challenges with that. Even if I had the high octane fuel it just burned a little bit a little quicker than I would have liked. And that was certainly part of it.”
On if she knew it was her final season as coach...
“I definitely didn't go into the years thinking I'm going for another 10 years. I've been kind of it a little bit as we go, I think we all experience things through the pandemic that maybe just shifted our perspective. It definitely wasn't, oh, I got to go out on a great season or I'm going to go out on a bad season. It didn't really have anything to do with that.”
On looking back at coaching experience...
“This isn't a big huge community, so sometimes when I'm out, people are like hey coach and stuff like that, and I think one of the things that I'm really proud of is just again, like they love that we win, right and you know, all that good stuff. But I think for some, for our donors, and for so many people, they just appreciate the character of our team and who we are out there and they see us out in the community and that's something that's always been really important to me and success is fleeting but you know, there's a significance to impacting people that that we've always taken a lot of pride in and that's probably the thing that I feel the best about.”
On her favorite memory
“I mean, obviously, I had all three of my children during the season so those are some memorable moments during the season. I mean, they're here. I kind of have to say that.”
On the level of commitment it takes to coach at the Power 5 level...
“I don't know that everybody does it the same. We work every day. I mean, that includes Christmas. You're texting recruits., you're you know, you're always getting film ready for your game on the 27th 28th you're finishing your scouts. So it's, I mean, it's a lifestyle. It's been amazing to me, and I don't regret any of it. 13, 14 hours a day, managing your team, preparing for games, recruiting, managing your donor base, managing a business and relationships, a lot of relationships, you know, 50 to 100 relationships a day and the prep. Back in the olden days, like we'd get to film like to game films two VHS tapes and that's all you'd have to prepare. Now we have every single possession for the entire year. You really can get consumed with with preparation and film as well but especially the way that we do it, because we want to prepare and win, but we really care about our young women and we're trying to make sure they're on a good place beyond basketball, and so there's, there's, you know, those types of things that are really important to us just take time and energy, it's not like sometimes It's kind of hard to describe. It's definitely a pretty intense profession and I think the hard thing about coaching is all the things you can't control, which was so hard on our team this year, you know, the pause and the injuries and piling games on top of games, I think that's always one of the hardest things in coaching. All the hardest work and prep sometimes doesn't matter.”
On her hopes fore the program moving forward...
“I just really want it to be transformative. I really want whoever comes in here to win championships, get to a Final Four, but also really care about these young women beyond basketball. We had 3.72 last semester. You know, we have our alumni that we've graduated, are doctors, lawyers, they're doing incredible things. They're leaders in their communities. I just like I want it all, they need to do it all, not just part of it. That's what I hope most for the future of Sun Devil women's basketball.”
On coaching in the Pac-12 Conference...
“I mean, it's always been a good conference, and I do think that, you know, we, for some years, it was us and Stanford, you know, back and forth. And I really think the PAC 12 network did an unbelievable job of raising our conference up because people never watched us, and we just weren't on TV. Then when they saw beyond January and a lot of players there was that recognition and, and stuff, it just kind of elevated everything. I'm proud of the players and the staff that we've coached that we're, you know, perennial, top three and you know, in the running for championships and you know, we would definitely set a standard.”
On telling her players about retiring..
“It was hard. I know, it was very unexpected, you know, and, obviously, that's one of the hardest things, whether you take a different job or you retire, you know, is leaving behind team, staff, they were amazing, after we met, they pretty much all came up and sat with me and said they were happy for me. I mean, they're just unbelievable. But you know, obviously we're all sad.”