Fueled by faith in Christ and a values-driven culture, UCLA’s Cori Close guides Bruins to first women’s title

UCLA Coach Cori Close finally broke through Sunday night with the school’s first women’s basketball national championship, doing so with a values-driven approach that emphasizes character and culture as well as talent – a model rarely seen in today’s sports culture.

The Bruins routed South Carolina 79-51 in the NCAA championship game, giving Close her first title in 15 seasons and the school’s first-ever women’s basketball crown in a program rich with titles in other sports – but, until now, none in women’s hoops.

Close recruits players based on talent – yes – but equally on three core values: a growth mindset, gratitude and being what she calls “lifestyle givers.” She was mentored by legendary UCLA men’s coach John Wooden and built her program around many of the same principles that defined his success.

Like Wooden, Close is a Christian.

“It was a calling,” she told ESPN after the game, referencing not only her career but her unique style. “It was the calling that God told me to do it this way. And we always said we were going to do it in an uncommon, transformational way.

“Coach Wooden always said you got to do it the way you’re wired to do it – not the way anyone else did it. And I just tried imperfectly to stay true to that.”

Under Close, UCLA has reached 10 NCAA tournaments, including eight Sweet 16s, three Elite 8s and now two Final Fours. After being trounced 85-51 in last year’s national semifinal by Connecticut, the Bruins learned valuable lessons and returned this year determined to finish what they started.

“It taught us, as a coaching staff, we could be better leaders – but for the team, how they could prepare at a higher level as well,” Close told NBC’s Today the morning after this year’s title game. 

When she first met Wooden three decades ago, he was 83, she 22 – a young UCLA assistant who was wide-eyed in the presence of a coaching legend. Wooden, long retired but still revered, had guided the Bruins to 10 NCAA championships, a record that still stands. Close became head coach of the women’s team in 2011, one year after he died.

She remains grateful for the 17 years she knew him.

“Coach Wooden talked about how the least of his concerns were a championship trophy and a banner,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “Those were the byproducts of being a great teacher of life and lessons about things that will live on long after the ball goes flat.”

Close wants her players to grow as people first, not just performers on the court.

“We want to be an uncommon transformational program that teaches and equips young women for life beyond UCLA,” she said.

This week, a viral clip of her sharing Wooden-like wisdom captured that philosophy: “Banners hang in gyms and rings collect dust, but who you become and who you impact in these four years, you get to keep forever.”

Close’s approach is fueled by her faith. When asked once who she would like to meet, she replied Mother Teresa, Tony Dungy – a coach also known for his faith – and her husband. (At 54, she remains single.)

“I want everyone I encounter to feel valued and loved, whether they share my faith or not,” she told the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in 2011. “I just want to enter their world and serve them and love them in a way that reflects what I’ve received from Jesus. I believe this is my ministry and what God has called me to.”

She shared further details about her faith in a 2020 Sports Spectrum Podcast.

“My job is to ‘act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with my God’ (Micah 6:8) and to ‘be prepared to give an account for the hope that lies within me’ (1 Peter 3:15),” she told Sports Spectrum. “… I gotta worry about walking in holiness the best I can. I gotta work on abiding in the Vine. I’ve changed my prayers so much; I pray that God [would] make me a fruit-bearer.”