Early life

Bird was born on October 16, 1980 in Syosset, Nassau County, New York to Herschel and Nancy Bird. She has an older sister named Jen. Her father is an Italian-born Russian Jew and their original last name was "Boorda". As a result, she has also held Israeli citizenship since 2006 but represents her birth country (the United States) in international competitions. Bird was raised in her mother's Christian religion.

Bird was interested in sports from an early age, which was partly influenced by her athletic older sister. Besides basketball, she played soccer, tennis, and ran track. Sue became a very good player and started playing AAU basketball in the sixth grade. While only 11 years old, she played during halftime of a St. John's basketball game; her play was so impressive that a security guard asked for her autograph.

High school

She played her freshman and sophomore years at Syosset High School, but wanted more competition. She therefore enrolled at Christ the King Regional High School in Queens, New York. Sue spent two seasons at Christ the King, and the Royals went 24-3 her Junior year. In the second season her team finished undefeated and won the New York state championship, and the national title. Bird won many awards, including the New York State Player of the Year, and the New York Daily News Player of the Year. Bird was named a WBCA All-American. She participated in the WBCA High School All-America Game, where she scored 11 points.

College

Bird was recruited by a number of teams, including Stanford and Vanderbilt. She considered UConn the favorite, but she began to waver when Keirsten Walters and Brianne Stepherson, both point guards, announced commitments to UConn. She worried that there might not be room for her to play. However, Stepherson changed her mind, and decided to go to Boston College, making the decision a bit easier, so Bird committed to UConn. In addition, she chose UConn because it was close to home, and the UConn program had a winning tradition like the one at Christ the King. She suffered a torn ACL eight games into her freshman season. She was not able to redshirt, because she had played in more than 20% of the team's games. In her sophomore season (1999-2000) she came back to lead the team to a 36-1 record and won the Big East Championship and the 2000 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament. The Huskies went 32-3 in her junior season. The last loss was to Big East rival Notre Dame in the Final Four. That was the last loss of Bird's college career, as the Huskies went an undefeated 39-0 in her 2002 senior season. In that season, she won the Wade Trophy and Naismith Award as College Player of the Year.

During her junior year, Bird played in a game against Notre Dame referred to as "the best women's basketball game ever played". The game was memorialized in a book, Bird at the Buzzer, in which Bird took the eponymous shot at the buzzer to win the game.

She finished her UConn career on many of the record lists. She currently ranks No. 24 on the 1,000 point list with 1,378 points, No. 2 in assists with 585, and seventh with 243 steals. She ranks number 1 in three point field goal percentage (45.9) and free throw percentage (89.2). She won two National Championships, three Big East Championships and Big East regular season titles. Bird was the inaugural winner of the Nancy Lieberman Award in 2000, given to the top point guard in the nation, and won the award in 2001 and 2002. Overall her record at UConn in games she played is a remarkable 114-4. Bird was a member of the inaugural class (2006) of inductees to the University of Connecticut women's basketball "Huskies of Honor" recognition program.

Statistics at University of Connecticut
Year	G	FG	FGA	PCT	3FG	3FGA	PCT	FT	FTA	PCT	REB	AVG	A	TO	B	S	MIN	PTS	AVG
1998-99	8	16	41	0.316	6	19	0.316	3	4	0.750	16	2.0	25	16	1	15	160	41	5.1
1999-00	37	140	279	0.502	72	145	0.497	53	59	0.898	94	2.5	160	80	1	69	1052	405	10.9
2000-01	34	137	309	0.443	60	139	0.432	35	45	0.778	89	2.6	169	88	4	63	941	369	10.9
2001-02	39	198	392	0.505	69	148	0.466	98	104	0.942	131	3.4	231	93	9	96	1168	563	14.4
Totals	118	491	1021	0.481	207	451	0.459	189	212	0.892	330	2.8	585	277	15	243	3321	1378	11.7

USA Basketball

She competed with USA Basketball as a member of the 2000 Jones Cup Team in Taipei. Bird started all four games, and led the team with 17 assists, helping lead the team to the gold medal.

In 2002, Bird was named to the national team which competed in the World Championships in Zhangjiagang, Changzhou and Nanjing, China. The team was coached by Van Chancellor. Bird scored 4.3 points per game. The USA team won all nine games, including a close title game against Russia, which was a one-point game late in the game.

In the 2003-2004 off-season, Bird was named to the United States 2004 Women's Olympic Basketball Team's roster. The USA team would go on to win the gold at the games in Athens, Greece.

In 2006, Bird was invited back to the National team for the World Championships held in Sao Paulo, Brazil in September 2006. With the retirements of Lisa Leslie and Dawn Staley and injuries to Sheryl Swoopes, Bird, along with Candace Parker and Diana Taurasi stepped up to leading roles on the national team. The USA team won eight of the nine games they played, but fell against Russia 75-68 in the medal round, so ended up with the bronze medal. Over the nine games, Bird hit 50% of her three-point attempts, typing her for accuracy leadership along with Taurasi and Swoopes. Bird led the team with 41 assists.

In the summer of 2008, she was invited back to be on the 2008 Olympic basketball team. The team won the gold medal in Beijing, China. Bird started all eight games, and led the team in steals, with 14.

Bird was invited to the USA Basketball Women's National Team training camp in the fall of 2009. The team selected to play for the 2010 FIBA World Championship and the 2012 Olympics is usually chosen from these participants. At the conclusion of the training camp, the team will travel to Ekaterinburg, Russia, where they compete in the 2009 UMMC Ekaterinburg International Invitational.

Bird was named as one of the National team members to represent the USA Basketball team in the WNBA versus USA Basketball. This game replaces the normal WNBA All-Star game with WNBA All-Stars versus USA Basketball, as part of the preparation for the FIBA World Championship for Women to be held in the Czech Republic during September and October 2010. Bird was selected to be a member of the National team representing the USA at the World Championships held in September and October 2010. The team was coached by Geno Auriemma. Because many team members were still playing in the WNBA until just prior to the event, the team had only one day of practice with the entire team before leaving for Ostrava and Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic. Even with limited practice, the team managed to win its first games against Greece by 26 points. The team continued to dominate with victory margins exceeding 20 points in the first five games. Several players shared scoring honors, with Swin Cash, Angel McCoughtry, Maya Moore, Diana Taurasi, Lindsay Whalen, and Sylvia Fowles all ending as high scorer in the first few games. The sixth game was against undefeated Australia — the USA jumped out to a 24-point lead and the USA prevailed 83-75. The USA won its next two games by over 30 points, then faced the host team, the Czech Republic, in the championship game. The USA team had only a five-point lead at halftime, which was cut to three points, but the Czechs never got closer. Team USA went on to win the championship and gold medal. Bird averaged 5.6 points per game and led the team in assists with 26.

Bird competed for the U.S. in the 2012 Summer Olympics. The Americans won their fifth straight gold medal.

Professional career

WNBA

The Seattle Storm selected Bird with the first overall pick of the 2002 WNBA Draft. In her rookie season, Bird started all 32 games for the Storm and averaged 14.4 ppg. She was selected as a starter on the 2002 WNBA Western Conference All-Star team. Bird was the runner-up for the Rookie of the Year award, and one of only two rookies to make the All-WNBA First Team. She also led the Storm to their first playoff appearance. Since her rookie season she has been selected to the Western Conference All Star team. In 2004 Bird helped the Storm win its first WNBA Championship. By winning the WNBA Championship Bird became one of 9 women to receive an Olympic Gold Medal, an NCAA Championship, and a WNBA Championship. The others are Ruth Riley, Sheryl Swoopes, Cynthia Cooper-Dyke, and fellow Huskies Swin Cash, Kara Wolters, Diana Taurasi, and following London 2012, Maya Moore & Tamika Catchings. Bird now has two WNBA championships to go along with her two NCAA championships after the Seattle Storm beat the Atlanta Dream for the 2010 WNBA championship. In 2011, she was voted in by fans as one of the Top 15 players in the fifteen-year history of the WNBA.

During the 2012 WNBA season Bird had been having problems with her knee. Because of this she had to have surgery which would prevent her from playing the entire 2013 season with the Storm.

International

In the 2004-2005 WNBA off-season, she played in Russia, with Storm teammate Kamila Vodichkova on the Dynamo Moscow. In the 2005-2006 WNBA off-season, she played on the same team, reaching the Russian championship and the Euroleague women's playoffs.

In the 2006-2007 WNBA off-season, she joined Storm teammate Lauren Jackson and fellow UConn stars Diana Taurasi and Svetlana Abrosimova on the Russian team Spartak Moscow Region to win both the Russian Super League and the EuroLeague Women championships.

WNBA career statistics

Legend
GP	Games played	GS	Games started	MPG	Minutes per game	RPG	Rebounds per game
APG	Assists per game	SPG	Steals per game	BPG	Blocks per game	PPG	Points per game
TO	Turnovers per game	FG%	Field-goal percentage	3P%	3-point field-goal percentage	FT%	Free-throw percentage
Bold	Career high		League leader

Regular season

Year	Team	GP	GS	MPG	FG%	3P%	FT%	RPG	APG	SPG	BPG	TO	PPG
2002	Seattle	32	32	35.0	.403	.401	.911	2.6	6.0	1.7	0.1	3.41	14.4
2003	Seattle	34	34	33.4	.421	.350	.884	3.3	6.5	1.4	0.0	3.24	12.4
2004	Seattle	34	34	33.4	.463	.438	.859	3.1	5.4	1.5	0.2	2.56	12.9
2005	Seattle	30	30	34.0	.442	.437	.855	2.4	5.9	1.0	0.2	2.90	12.1
2006	Seattle	34	34	31.3	.411	.366	.868	3.0	4.8	1.8	0.1	2.59	11.4
2007	Seattle	29	29	31.7	.428	.338	.846	2.0	4.9	1.5	0.3	2.31	10.4
2008	Seattle	33	33	33.7	.441	.343	.871	2.5	5.1	1.2	0.1	2.67	14.1
2009	Seattle	31	31	35.5	.408	.360	.854	2.5	5.8	1.5	0.1	2.61	12.8
2010	Seattle	33	33	30.5	.434	.399	.857	2.7	5.8	1.5	0.2	1.82	11.1
2011	Seattle	34	34	33.0	.449	.428	.875	2.9	4.9	1.4	0.2	2.35	14.7
2012	Seattle	29	29	31	.459	.384	.783	2.9	5.3	0.9	0.1	2.24	12.2
2014	Seattle	33	33	29.2	.386	.345	.831	2.2	4.0	0.8	0.0	2.27	10.6
Career	12 years, 1 team	386	386	32.7	.428	.383	.864	2.7	5.4	1.4	0.1	2.58	12.5

Postseason

Year	Team	GP	GS	MPG	FG%	3P%	FT%	RPG	APG	SPG	BPG	TO	PPG
2002	Seattle	2	2	36.5	.409	.273	1.000	0.0	6.0	2.5	0.0	2.50	14.0
2004	Seattle	8	8	29.1	.377	.300	.762	3.2	5.2	1.5	0.0	2.00	8.5
2005	Seattle	3	3	34.3	.273	.133	.875	1.7	4.3	1.0	0.0	1.33	9.0
2006	Seattle	3	3	35.0	.361	.333	.625	2.7	3.3	0.3	0.7	2.33	12.7
2007	Seattle	2	2	35.5	.458	.583	1.000	2.0	5.0	2.0	0.0	3.00	16.5
2008	Seattle	3	3	37.0	.460	.294	1.000	2.3	3.0	1.3	0.0	2.00	19.7
2009	Seattle	3	3	36.3	.333	.417	.875	3.7	4.0	1.3	0.0	2.33	11.3
2010	Seattle	7	7	37.0	.386	.333	.769	4.1	7.7	1.7	0.4	2.00	12.1
2011	Seattle	3	3	33.7	.444	.5	.857	4	2.7	1	0	0.67	15.7
2012	Seattle	3	3	35.3	.439	.5	.833	1.7	7	1.7	0.7	3.33	16.3
Career	10 years, 1 team	37	37	34.4	.394	.36	.833	2.9	5.2	1.4	0.2	2.08	12.6

Awards and honors

• 1998—WBCA All-American.
• 2000—Nancy Lieberman Award
• 2001—Nancy Lieberman Award
• 2002—Nancy Lieberman Award
• 2002—Naismith Award
• 2002—Wade Trophy
• 2002—Lowe's Senior CLASS Award
• 2002—Big East Conference Women's Basketball Player of the Year
• 2002—Winner of the Honda Sports Award for basketball
• 2002-07, 2009, 2011, 2014 - WNBA All-Star Selection
• 2009—Most Valuable Point Guard, Ekaterinburg International Invitational
• 2010—All—-WNBA Second Team
• 2012—MVP Russian Cup Finals

[ Source: Wikipedia ]