UNCASVILLE — For the great ones, there is that place when a corner is turned, leaving behind the road that leads to something less and heading toward greatness. The great coaches point it out, the great athletes accept it.
And as the much talked-about UConn women’s documentary has been showing us, neither the turn nor the road beyond it is “always beautiful,” as Paige Bueckers said.
Tina Charles is 18 years beyond her turning point with Geno Auriemma, one of the last mileposts passed Monday night when she was honored as a “Connecticut Suns Legend.” She has not yet sat down to watch “The Dynasty: UConn Huskies” — her post-playing life as an entrepreneur, brewer and TV analyst is picking up velocity — but her own story very much aligns with one of the Apple documentary’s central themes.
“After the 2008 Final Four, we got eliminated by Stanford, and he really challenged me,” Charles said. “He said, ‘this team not going to go anywhere unless Tina Charles gets her act together,’ that’s basically what the message was. He had a newspaper (photo) of Sylvia Fowles blocking my shot and he said ‘you should never want to look like that.'”
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Charles pinned that photo in her locker at UConn and took that harder, and less-traveled road.
“I said, ‘this is what I want to be like, I want to have finesse like Candace Parker, I want to be as dominant as Sylvia Fowles.’ From there, him touting me, believing in me that I could move this team forward, he always believed that if you have a really good point guard and a really good wing player and a post, you’ll be all right. We had Renee Montgomery and Maya Moore playing at a high level and I just had to catch up. I had humility with that, I accepted that challenge and it brought out my competitive edge.”
Once on the road to greatness, Tina Charles never turned back. The Huskies went undefeated the next two seasons, 78-0, the name she has put in her new business venture. She played on three Olympic Gold Medal teams with USA Basketball, and last year called it a career after 15 seasons in the WNBA, starting and ending in Connecticut with the Sun, winning the league Rookie of the Year Award in 2010 and MVP in 2012. Just as much a full-circle thing was Charles’ relationship with her last coach.
“She was very important last year, for my first year,” said Rachid Meziane, who came to the Sun after coaching in France and Belgium. “For me to be surrounded by a player like her, because beyond being a player, she was able to help me understand American culture and American players. I could just communicate with her. … She’s a legend, no one can question that. Her career was amazing and a good example for every young player.”
The Sun have been honoring the players and coaches who made their 23-year run in Connecticut one of the best stories in the WNBA’s 30-year history, and Charles, the No.1 pick in the 2010 draft, launched a successful era before moving to the Liberty to play in her home town, New York. With The W to abandon the state at the end of September, Charles took the mic to remind the crowd, “The WNBA would not be where it is today without you guys. The Sun is setting on this chapter but the memories that were built here will always continue to shine on.”
Charles introduced another version of her 78 Brewing Co.’s hazy IPA , named in honor of her former team’s Sunset Season. She has been working as an analyst for women’s basketball, and will work the upcoming FIBA World Cup in that capacity.
“Success is what you accomplish and significance is what you leave behind,” she said. “For me, I’m trying to make sure I’m going from success to significance. There are going to be other women who are going to retire, what does that look like for them? What are the emotions? I just hope I’m leaving a great example, to be open, be adventurous, be creative, to walk through the doors the Good Lord is going to open up for you, which I am doing right now. Going into broadcasting, which I never thought I would be doing.”
“What (players) should take away form my legacy? I would say just consistency. My foundation was always the effort, coming in and putting in the work and seeing the results. Just be consistent and always have perseverance, just always focus on what you’re trying to accomplish and just be accountable to your teammates and your coaches.”
And Charles, 37, was a productive pro right to the end, averaging 16.3 points and 5.8 rebounds per game for the Sun in 2025, but she had been great for too long to be less than that and she retired while still near the top of her game. She is high up on UConn’s career list in the major categories, the leading rebounder, at both ends of the floor in WNBA history, and second only to Diana Taurasi in scoring. The last stretch of the road to greatness is the one with the least traffic of all, coming to a stop at the Naismith Hall of Fame in Springfield, and for Tina Charles the destination was inevitable that day at UConn in 2008.
“I knew the results that I wanted, I knew the type of player I wanted to be,” she said. “Once I look back at myself, the standard was set at UConn. Coach Auriemma had a high bar for me, he knew that I could reach it and I believed him. There are players who leave numbers behind, there are players who leave it better than they found it. I hope I am one of those who did both.”
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