Rizzotti takes look at her career after being fired from GW
Jen Rizzotti will leave her Vienna, Va., home Saturday for San Antonio, where she’ll begin the next phase of her work as an assistant coach for the U.S. Senior National Team.
The basketball mini-camp is important to Team USA’s preparation for the Tokyo Olympics in July, and valuable to Rizzotti for many reasons.
“I just need different scenery and different people around me and people I can bounce some things off of,” Rizzotti said. “And the coaching part, I’ll love just being back on the court, coaching at this level. The Olympics is right there, so close. I feel like this will be really good for me mentally, physically, emotionally, everything.”
Rizzotti, of New Fairfield, was fired by George Washington on March 15 after five years. She was
72-74 at GW, with a WNIT appearance in her first season
(2016-17) and an Atlantic 10 championship and Women’s NCAA Tournament berth in her second.
“I think this year, especially, universities and athletic departments really struggled, financially,” Rizzotti said. “Although I was told my being let go was a product of me not winning, I also think I’m smart enough to know there were some financial ramifications to it as well.”
Rizzotti had one year remaining on her contract. She would not disclose her salary. The Colonials were 33-50 the past three seasons.
“My expectations were to compete for a championship every year,” she said. “I feel good that we were able to do that in two of my five years — actually, probably four if you don’t count this year. But it wasn’t every year. I can’t argue with the fact that we haven’t won over the last few years.”
GW was 9-14 in 2020-21, bringing Rizzotti’s career record to 388-290.
Having spent the previous 17 seasons at Hartford, leading the Hawks to five America East championships and six Women’s NCAA Tournament appearances, Rizzotti,
46, is without a job as a college coach for the first time since 1999, when she was 25. Already, she said, people inside and outside of basketball have reached out to gauge her interest in jobs and/or career paths.
“It’s hard to think about jumping right back in,” Rizzotti said. “I’d have to take what is available and make a quick decision. I don’t know that’s right for me [or] my family. I know I’m not 100 percent ready to give up coaching, but I don’t know if I want to do it right now. I don’t want to close the door to it, [and] I need to stay relevant enough in the profession … as athletic directors look to make changes in the future. I need to make sure my kids are OK, and when I say my kids, I mean my boys and my [former] players.”
Rizzotti was the point guard on UConn’s first national championship team in 1995 and the national player of the year as a senior in 1996. She played in the ABL for the New England Blizzard (1996-98) and in the WNBA for the Houston Comets (1999-2000) and Cleveland Rockers (200103).
In 1999, she married Brian Sullivan, who was as an assistant coach on Rizzotti’s staffs at Hartford and GW. The couple has two sons, ages 15 and 12.
After passing on numerous job offers while at Hartford, Rizzotti made the move to George Washington following the 2015-16 season. Athletic director Pat Meiser had retired, president Walt Harrison was about to, and Rizzotti viewed GW as a place where she could recruit successfully and win consistently.
“I didn’t realize how spoiled I was at Hartford,” Rizzotti said. “I had the opportunity to grow up as a coach. They had patience for me to be able to do that and learn the business, and just be mentors. They always supported not just the fact that we were winning, but that we were doing a lot right for the student-athletes off the court. Certainly the championships didn’t hurt my ability to stay there a long time. I think my loyalty to them came from their loyalty to me. I don’t know that I took it for granted, but I just didn’t know any other way . ... I don’t regret choosing to go to GW for one second. It might not have been the best fit for me at the end of the day, but the relationships I made with my staff and my players, I’ll cherish them for the rest of my life.”
The conversations at GW this season, Rizzotti said, were mostly about student welfare amid trying circumstances. The Colonials led many off-the-court initiatives, publicly supporting mental health awareness, the Black Lives Matter movement, Play for Kay cancer awareness and a Set The Expectation movement against physical and sexual violence.
“The feedback I was given this year was all really positive,” Rizzotti said. “That’s why I was surprised that it came down to a conversation about wins and losses. It definitely caught me off guard. I’m also smart enough to get it. … For 17 years, it never felt like a business to me and now I’m living in the reality of college coaching being a business. I’m OK with that. Even if I don’t agree with it, it doesn’t mean I don’t understand it. I have to be OK with it and feel like, 100 percent, I did what was right by the student-athletes and by the program.”
Rizzotti, whose Hartford teams twice won first-round Women’s NCAA Tournament games, has been a coach with USA Basketball since 2006. Tokyo will be her first Olympics as a bench coach. Dawn Staley of South Carolina is the head coach. Dan Hughes (Seattle Storm) and Cheryl Reeves (Minnesota Lynx) are the other assistants.
Team USA spent last year touring, including a stop in Hartford Jan. 27 with Rizzotti on the bench for a 79-64 exhibition victory over UConn.