Sports: Stonington’s Buck elected to Connecticut Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame
Ex-Stonington great to be inducted into Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame
One of Heather Buck's best friends from her time as a member of the UConn women's basketball team is former practice player and student manager Kevin DeMille, now an assistant women's coach at George Washington under head coach Jen Rizzotti.
Buck paid DeMille a visit last spring.
“I spent three days. He would go to meetings and I would hang out in his office,” Buck said. “Just being around it is so much fun. He was apologizing and I was like, 'I'll sit in the office. I'll sit in the gym and watch all day.'
“Having those times you get to re-immerse yourself (in basketball), they're so much fun. It's not just a part of your life, it does kind of become a piece of who you are.”
Buck, a 2008 graduate of Stonington High School where she was the 2007 and 2008 Gatorade Connecticut Basketball Player of the Year, and a three-time national champion during her career at UConn, will now have another opportunity to re-immerse herself in basketball.
Buck, 27, has been elected to the Connecticut Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, where she will be inducted along with six others on April 18 at the Cascade Banquet Facility in Hamden.
Buck scored a program-record 2,205 points and finished with 1,406 rebounds for Stonington under coach Paulla Solar, leading the Bears to the 2006 Class M championship.
She redshirted her freshman year at UConn and graduated in 2013 with a degree in nursing, having been a part of five Final Four teams with the Huskies and coach Geno Auriemma.
Buck joins Solar (inducted in 2006)
and 1980 graduate Vianna McGugan (inducted in 2011) as Stonington's representatives in the Hall of Fame. Solar will present Buck's Hall of Fame award.
“It's such an honor,” Buck said in a telephone interview Thursday. “I feel like I'm still so close to playing and so you think of people going into the Hall of Fame … I didn't expect it to happen to me.
“I called (my parents, David and Mayada) that evening after I talked to everybody. I explained to them how you get into a Hall of Fame — because they're not sports people — and how it's a big deal to be inducted so close to having played. They're looking forward to it.”
Buck, a registered nurse at Connecticut Children's Medical Center, resides in West Hartford with her husband Jimmy Bennett, a 2014 UConn graduate and former member of the Huskies' football team.
Buck lists the people she's had the chance to meet as the best of the whole basketball experience, but also what it taught her about herself.
“It's not just about learning to play basketball, it's not about learning to be good at the game, but what you learn about yourself as a human being,” Buck said. “What you're capable of. What it feels like to be successful, what it feels like to fail. How you respond to failure.
“How do you function within a team? How do you build people up? How do you respect other people? It's all of those things. It's the things you don't necessarily realize you're learning when you're playing.
“Sometimes (in life), you can't let your own personal feelings and nerves show. You have to be strong and prepared. (Basketball) prepares you for that.” v.fulkerson@theday.com