THIS PAST December, when SLAM reached out to Paige Bueckers to tell her that she was going to be on the next cover, she responded with just two words: “Why me?” Bueckers, the No. 1 high school girls basketball player in the country and UConn commit, had just received a wave of honors, including the prestigious USA Basketball Female Athlete of the Year award. But SLAM cover star? She didn’t see that coming.
“Seeing all the people who were on [the cover] before, I was like, Why me? I’m just a little white hooper from Minnesota,” she laughs. “Seeing that I was going to be on the cover as a high school athlete, it was just amazing, especially because the women’s basketball game doesn’t get as much love.”
Fewer than a handful of high school athletes—Bueckers included—have appeared on a solo SLAM cover over the course of the brand’s 26-year history. That could be some added pressure for an 18-year-old who is already viewed as one of the rising stars of women’s basketball.
But Bueckers has a different relationship to pressure. She seeks high-stakes situations because, quite simply, she wants to be great. Pressure is baked into the path she’s taken.
So when Geno Auriemma told reporters that he expects Bueckers to bean integral part of a UConn title run next season, the pressure didn’t faze her. “Coach told me pressure is when someone’s asking you to do something that you can’t do,” Bueckers says.
This story is from the March - April 2020 edition of Slam.
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This story is from the March - April 2020 edition of Slam.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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