But leadership is often born of imperfect circumstances, Rizzotti said. That was a recurring theme as the New Fairfield, Connecticut native, who’s entering her sixth season as team president of the Connecticut Sun, spoke to a rapt audience in the University Club on Quinnipiac's York Hill Campus on March 31, just days after it was announced the team will play its final season in Uncasville, Connecticut this summer.

Rizzotti began her remarks by directly addressing the news, a major blow to the state’s legions of passionate women’s basketball fans. The Sun’s impending relocation to Houston, where it will be rebranded with the name of one of the league’s founding franchises, the Comets, will also displace a sizable contingent of the team’s front office personnel — a subplot that isn’t getting enough attention, Rizzotti said.

It is unclear whether she will continue to serve in the same capacity for the Comets.

“There’s a lot of negative discourse out there about the team and the move and who's responsible for it, and I think there’s not enough compassion for the amount of people whose lives this is affecting,” Rizzotti said. “I've got a team of people who mostly have refused to leave, even though I've told them they can. And that's when you know you've built the right culture. That’s when you know you've built the right team, when you've got people who are going to be there with you until the very end, who want to be standing by your side when that last game ends at Mohegan Sun Arena.”

At 5-foot-4, Rizzotti was often the shortest player on the court. She frequently tagged along with her older brother, who was 11 months older and a full foot taller.

“He got all the height in our family,” she joked.

Playing youth sports with boys helped her forge a toughness, a competitive spirit that belied her physical stature. It’s a trait that will serve her well as she approaches another challenging chapter in a winding and rewarding professional journey.

“When I look back to my childhood, one of the most special things for me is I had parents who never told me I couldn't do something,” she said. “They never said I couldn't play with the boys, they never told me I couldn't play sports, they let me be who I needed to be. I had so much energy and so much competitiveness, and [sports] was my outlet.”

Following the Huskies’ 35-0 march to the 1995 national championship — their first of 12 titles under head coach Geno Auriemma, whom Rizzotti counts as a mentor — she went on to win both the 1996 Wade Trophy and the AP Player of the Year award as the sport’s most outstanding player. She then embarked on an eight-year playing career in both the American

Basketball League and the WNBA before her retirement in 2004. Rizzotti served in a variety of coaching roles for USA basketball, collecting six gold medals in International Basketball Federation (FIBA) competitions.

She coached at the University of Hartford for 17 seasons, from 1999 to 2016, leading the Hawks to a combined nine America East conference titles and six NCAA Tournament appearances. But her next coaching assignment, at George Washington University, came to an abrupt end after five seasons and another NCAA Tournament berth.

Rizzotti’s dismissal led to some soul-searching and a reassessment of her career goals. Ultimately, it was a positive, she said, because it brought her back to the state where it all began.

“I grew up here, I played my career here, I coached most of my career here. And when I came back, I felt like the state just welcomed me with open arms, like it was where I belonged,” Rizzotti said. 

The event, the second stop in a four-part speaker series titled “From the Court to the C-Suite,” concluded with an audience Q&A. Rizzotti fielded questions on a range of topics, including her advice for young women looking to break into the sports industry and how leaders navigate the hiring process. But before a question could be asked about the Sun, she gave an impassioned plea for Connecticut basketball fans ahead of this 23rd
and final season in Uncasville.

“You won’t see any sadness when you come to our games,” she said. “We have emotions about this sale, but we are not sad. We are excited and we are going to take advantage of every chance we get to make this a special season.”