George Washington University Athletics
True to the Red, White & Blue
9/6/2018 10:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball, My GW: Celebrating our Stories
Rizzotti and Team USA visit Smith Center on Monday
The call came in early March, just as Jennifer Rizzotti was wrapping up one of the most gratifying seasons of her coaching career.
Her George Washington Colonials, picked sixth in the conference preseason poll, had persevered to peak at the right time and make a spirited run to claim the Atlantic 10 Championship title.
As Rizzotti began preparations for her first NCAA Tournament leading the Buff and Blue, U.S. Women's National Team Director Carol Callan phoned with more good news: Rizzotti had been picked by an esteemed committee of USA Basketball officials to serve as an assistant coach under South Carolina's Dawn Staley for the Red, White and Blue at the upcoming FIBA World Cup in Spain.
"When I got that call from Carol, I literally wanted to cry," Rizzotti said. "It was a really big deal for me. Because I wasn't sure with how many ridiculously good coaches are out there that I would get this chance this soon."
On Monday night, Rizzotti will get another special moment when Charles E. Smith Center hosts Team USA for an exhibition against Japan at 7 p.m. (Ticket info)
Rizzotti has earned the chance to direct the best players in the world thanks to her faithful commitment to USA Basketball through the years. Understandably, her job leading GW doesn't offer much free time, but she's proven time and again willing to do whatever she can to help the national program.
Rizzotti made her Team USA coaching debut as an assistant with the U-18 squad in 2006. Since then, she's served in a variety of capacities at the youth and senior levels, including a role as advance scout at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
"It's easy to want to be a part of this," Callan said. "People all the time say 'Can I carry bags? Can I do whatever to help?' But when you really get in it and you realize that the days are 20-hour days, all the sudden people kind of tail off.
"With Jen, the follow-through is so good. She just gives you her all. We notice it. The players notice. And the reward is we want her to continue to work with us."
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Rizzotti donned the Red, White and Blue on foreign soil for the first time in 1996.
The point guard had just wrapped up an All-American career at Connecticut when she was picked to be part of a team of college all-stars that USA Basketball sent to Taiwan to compete in the 1996 Jones Cup.
Rizzotti led the team in assists en route to a perfect record with its nine wins coming by an average of 33 points per game. She headed home with a gold medal, some lasting friendships and a better sense of what it meant to represent her country.
"For me, it was just a great honor," Rizzotti said. "You stand there with your red, white and blue on and you listen to the national anthem, and it just means a lot more than you ever thought hearing it in your own gym."
It's a feeling Rizzotti has come to cherish in her coaching work with Team USA.
Rizzotti was leading Hartford in 2006 when she was appointed to help DePaul's Doug Bruno at the U-18 FIBA Americas Championship in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Besides a few summers away as she was starting her family, Rizzotti has been involved with Team USA in some capacity ever since. She's won international gold medals as a youth head coach (U-18 2011, U-19 2012) and as a member of the senior team staff (World Cup 2014, Olympics 2016).
Along the way, Rizzotti has earned respect from some of the best in the world with her intensity, attention to detail and willingness to work. She's earned the chance to keep adding responsibility within the national program.
"You know she's going to be really consistent with who she is," said two-time Olympic champion Tina Charles, who first worked with Rizzotti on the U-18 team in 2006. "She's very poised, and that's what I like. It really calms the team and gives me a lot of confidence, personally."
"When you're a really good coach," Staley added, "it translates to the highest level."
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Beyond the draw of the world stage, Team USA presents an environment that brings out the best in Rizzotti. Every workout provides a masterclass in what it takes to be great on the hardwood.
"People from the outside don't always get to see what goes into the gold-medal championship culture," Rizzotti said. "You don't make this team because you're the best player. You make this team because you embrace what we're all about."
Rizzotti embodies that spirit as much as anybody. She'd never been an assistant coach at any level before her Team USA debut, but she's eagerly embraced every opportunity, whether she's leading the huddle or working behind the scenes.
At the 2016 Rio Games, her role required hours of in-person scouting and film study daily to help head coach Geno Auriemma and his assistants prepare for what turned out to be eight games in 14 days. The highlight was when she got to present the scouting report to the squad before its matchup with China.
It was a sometimes thankless job putting in so much work and then watching games from the stands, but her commitment to the details made a difference in helping Team USA claim a sixth straight Olympic gold. (Coaches, it should be noted, aren't awarded Olympic medals, but she has a replica presented by USA Basketball at home.)
"She has a tremendous way of breaking down the game," said Staley, who competed against Rizzotti in the ABL and WNBA. "Her mind is always working overtime. She's still that point guard always two and three steps ahead of the play."
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
For Rizzotti, every Team USA assignment is a learning experience. She makes time for the Red, White and Blue, with the support of her student-athletes and staff, because she knows it will ultimately make her a better coach.
She's constantly mining for details that can translate to her program in GW, whether that's talking offseason structure with Bruno, strength and conditioning with Staley or how to maximize limited practice time during the season with former GW assistant and current WNBA head coach Cheryl Reeve.
Lately, she's made a concentrated effort to give the Colonials more ownership in scouting and preparing for opponents after seeing the success of that style with the national team. There's more buy-in to the plan when it feels more like a collaboration, she's found thanks to her work with veterans like Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi.
"It just gives you a variety of opinions and pieces of the whole puzzle," Rizzotti said of her time around some of the game's greatest minds. "Basketball can be so limited to that on-the-court experience, and what we do as coaches is so much more than that.
"I love talking about philosophy and strategy and game-planning with anybody that is willing to talk to me. The great thing is everybody (with Team USA) has been super open about it."
Callan has a story to sum up Rizzotti's commitment to the cause: In the lead up to the 2008 Olympics, the USA Basketball official called asking a favor. She needed a squad for an impromptu scrimmage with the national team, which was holding a training camp in Connecticut.
Several years removed from her pro career, Rizzotti took the court with her husband Bill and a few friends to battle Team USA. With no subs on her side, she did her best to keep up with Bird and Taurasi for four quarters.
"That's Jen," Callan said, "She took it seriously, and she worked her butt off to give us what we needed."
A decade later, Rizzotti is still bringing that mindset to Team USA. That's why Callan was so thrilled back in March to be on the other end of that emotional phone call delivering the news of the GW coach's new role.
"I know if I call her she's going to do everything she can to fulfill whatever the call is about," Callan said. "Whether it's finding a practice team, whether it's a gym to practice in, whether it's hosting a game, whether it's coaching our teams, whether it's doing grunt work that many people will never appreciate as much as we do, she just does all of that.
"Quite honestly, there just aren't that many people that will run through walls for us like she will."
Her George Washington Colonials, picked sixth in the conference preseason poll, had persevered to peak at the right time and make a spirited run to claim the Atlantic 10 Championship title.
As Rizzotti began preparations for her first NCAA Tournament leading the Buff and Blue, U.S. Women's National Team Director Carol Callan phoned with more good news: Rizzotti had been picked by an esteemed committee of USA Basketball officials to serve as an assistant coach under South Carolina's Dawn Staley for the Red, White and Blue at the upcoming FIBA World Cup in Spain.
"When I got that call from Carol, I literally wanted to cry," Rizzotti said. "It was a really big deal for me. Because I wasn't sure with how many ridiculously good coaches are out there that I would get this chance this soon."
On Monday night, Rizzotti will get another special moment when Charles E. Smith Center hosts Team USA for an exhibition against Japan at 7 p.m. (Ticket info)
Rizzotti has earned the chance to direct the best players in the world thanks to her faithful commitment to USA Basketball through the years. Understandably, her job leading GW doesn't offer much free time, but she's proven time and again willing to do whatever she can to help the national program.
Rizzotti made her Team USA coaching debut as an assistant with the U-18 squad in 2006. Since then, she's served in a variety of capacities at the youth and senior levels, including a role as advance scout at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
"It's easy to want to be a part of this," Callan said. "People all the time say 'Can I carry bags? Can I do whatever to help?' But when you really get in it and you realize that the days are 20-hour days, all the sudden people kind of tail off.
"With Jen, the follow-through is so good. She just gives you her all. We notice it. The players notice. And the reward is we want her to continue to work with us."
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Rizzotti donned the Red, White and Blue on foreign soil for the first time in 1996.
The point guard had just wrapped up an All-American career at Connecticut when she was picked to be part of a team of college all-stars that USA Basketball sent to Taiwan to compete in the 1996 Jones Cup.
Rizzotti led the team in assists en route to a perfect record with its nine wins coming by an average of 33 points per game. She headed home with a gold medal, some lasting friendships and a better sense of what it meant to represent her country.
"For me, it was just a great honor," Rizzotti said. "You stand there with your red, white and blue on and you listen to the national anthem, and it just means a lot more than you ever thought hearing it in your own gym."
It's a feeling Rizzotti has come to cherish in her coaching work with Team USA.
Rizzotti was leading Hartford in 2006 when she was appointed to help DePaul's Doug Bruno at the U-18 FIBA Americas Championship in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Besides a few summers away as she was starting her family, Rizzotti has been involved with Team USA in some capacity ever since. She's won international gold medals as a youth head coach (U-18 2011, U-19 2012) and as a member of the senior team staff (World Cup 2014, Olympics 2016).
Along the way, Rizzotti has earned respect from some of the best in the world with her intensity, attention to detail and willingness to work. She's earned the chance to keep adding responsibility within the national program.
"You know she's going to be really consistent with who she is," said two-time Olympic champion Tina Charles, who first worked with Rizzotti on the U-18 team in 2006. "She's very poised, and that's what I like. It really calms the team and gives me a lot of confidence, personally."
"When you're a really good coach," Staley added, "it translates to the highest level."
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Beyond the draw of the world stage, Team USA presents an environment that brings out the best in Rizzotti. Every workout provides a masterclass in what it takes to be great on the hardwood.
"People from the outside don't always get to see what goes into the gold-medal championship culture," Rizzotti said. "You don't make this team because you're the best player. You make this team because you embrace what we're all about."
Rizzotti embodies that spirit as much as anybody. She'd never been an assistant coach at any level before her Team USA debut, but she's eagerly embraced every opportunity, whether she's leading the huddle or working behind the scenes.
At the 2016 Rio Games, her role required hours of in-person scouting and film study daily to help head coach Geno Auriemma and his assistants prepare for what turned out to be eight games in 14 days. The highlight was when she got to present the scouting report to the squad before its matchup with China.
It was a sometimes thankless job putting in so much work and then watching games from the stands, but her commitment to the details made a difference in helping Team USA claim a sixth straight Olympic gold. (Coaches, it should be noted, aren't awarded Olympic medals, but she has a replica presented by USA Basketball at home.)
"She has a tremendous way of breaking down the game," said Staley, who competed against Rizzotti in the ABL and WNBA. "Her mind is always working overtime. She's still that point guard always two and three steps ahead of the play."
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
For Rizzotti, every Team USA assignment is a learning experience. She makes time for the Red, White and Blue, with the support of her student-athletes and staff, because she knows it will ultimately make her a better coach.
She's constantly mining for details that can translate to her program in GW, whether that's talking offseason structure with Bruno, strength and conditioning with Staley or how to maximize limited practice time during the season with former GW assistant and current WNBA head coach Cheryl Reeve.
Lately, she's made a concentrated effort to give the Colonials more ownership in scouting and preparing for opponents after seeing the success of that style with the national team. There's more buy-in to the plan when it feels more like a collaboration, she's found thanks to her work with veterans like Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi.
"It just gives you a variety of opinions and pieces of the whole puzzle," Rizzotti said of her time around some of the game's greatest minds. "Basketball can be so limited to that on-the-court experience, and what we do as coaches is so much more than that.
"I love talking about philosophy and strategy and game-planning with anybody that is willing to talk to me. The great thing is everybody (with Team USA) has been super open about it."
Callan has a story to sum up Rizzotti's commitment to the cause: In the lead up to the 2008 Olympics, the USA Basketball official called asking a favor. She needed a squad for an impromptu scrimmage with the national team, which was holding a training camp in Connecticut.
Several years removed from her pro career, Rizzotti took the court with her husband Bill and a few friends to battle Team USA. With no subs on her side, she did her best to keep up with Bird and Taurasi for four quarters.
"That's Jen," Callan said, "She took it seriously, and she worked her butt off to give us what we needed."
A decade later, Rizzotti is still bringing that mindset to Team USA. That's why Callan was so thrilled back in March to be on the other end of that emotional phone call delivering the news of the GW coach's new role.
"I know if I call her she's going to do everything she can to fulfill whatever the call is about," Callan said. "Whether it's finding a practice team, whether it's a gym to practice in, whether it's hosting a game, whether it's coaching our teams, whether it's doing grunt work that many people will never appreciate as much as we do, she just does all of that.
"Quite honestly, there just aren't that many people that will run through walls for us like she will."
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