In the infancy of Title IX, college athletic programs didn’t always provide transportation for their women’s sports teams. The onus was on the head coach to figure out how to get the team to road games and back before classes the next day.
So with his own money, Doug Bruno bought a cherry red Ford E-150 cargo van for $5,000 when he became DePaul’s women’s basketball coach in 1976. He inserted two bench seats that fit three players each and laid gymnastics mats on the floor for the rest of his roster. On drives across the state in the depths of winter, his players played tic-tac-toe in the frost that accumulated on the windows he personally cut and placed on the sides of the van.
These are the sacrifices that define Bruno’s legacy. Yes, the 24 NCAA Tournament appearances, six gold medals with USA Basketball and four Big East and Conference USA Coach of the Year awards are major reasons he will be inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in June.
But Bruno’s imprint on basketball in Chicago will carry on past his time at DePaul, which opens Big East Tournament play with a Saturday quarterfinal against Marquette (1:30 p.m., FS2).
“He has entirely changed the complexion of how we all view women’s basketball,” said Sarah Kustok, who played for DePaul from 2000-04 and is a broadcaster for the Brooklyn Nets on the YES Network. “For the entirety of his career, Doug has been one of the biggest advocates pushing for exposure and respect for women in athletics. You cannot think about women’s basketball without bringing up Doug Bruno.”
During his 36-year tenure at DePaul, Bruno’s goals have evolved as women’s basketball has grown. Early on, he and the athletic department had to find funding for scholarships, and most of his players were multisport athletes. The first four scholarships Bruno received for the basketball team were split among 10 players with no one receiving a full scholarship.
Building a well-rounded program, in his eyes, was the avenue for eventual on-court success.
“Those women were true pioneers,” Bruno said. “We got to this point where we asked ourselves, ‘How can we grow this thing? How can we get this off the ground?’ In the ’70s our goals were to get scholarships, in the late ’80s they were to get to the postseason and in the ’90s (to) get to the NCAA Tournament.
“But at the turn of the century we knew we needed to become a ranked team, a perennially academically ranked team and create a great culture for young women.”
A lot of coaches will rattle off disingenuous coach-speak when it comes to valuing their players’ performances in the classroom.
Not Bruno.
According to Chicago Sky guard Allie Quigley, who is DePaul’s No. 3 all-time scorer and played for the program from 2004-08, Bruno required his players to sit in the front row of their classes and to meet with him before noon and discuss how their courses went. There were instances when the team would take a 6 a.m. flight back from an East Coast trip so players could attend their 8:30 classes.
“I remember being a (physical education) teacher and thinking, ‘I am a basketball player,’ and my 8:30 class happened to be basketball,” Quigley said. “I remembering thinking, ‘I am just going to skip it and get some sleep since I am on the basketball team.’ He found out, and it was the scariest day of my life.”
Described by many as a parental figure, Bruno also has made his mark in the Chicago area with his eponymous basketball camp he started in 1980.
Unable to get an indoor space, Bruno held the camp outside during its inception. Having to scream over construction workers’ jackhammers tearing up the concrete nearby resulted in Bruno’s trademark hoarse voice.
“He said (his voice) didn’t used to be like that,” said Candis Blankson, who played for Bruno from 1997-2001 and has been an assistant coach to him the last 21 years. “It just never came back. He started using a microphone after that.”
The camp became one of the biggest stages in the area for girls to hone their skills. It has hosted more than 84,000 players over the last 40 years.
“That camp is a staple of basketball in the Chicagoland area,” said SIU Edwardsville coach Sam Quigley, who played for Bruno from 2006-11. “He has helped hundreds and hundreds of girls in the summertime. If anyone asks you what camp you need to go to, it’s the Doug Bruno camp. Period. There’s no competition.”
Bruno doesn’t like taking credit for what he and DePaul have done for women’s basketball. He swats away praise anytime it is thrown his way and points to those within the athletic department for building a foundation for women’s hoops at the university. He maintains a day-by-day mindset and doesn’t allow himself to think about what he has accomplished.
In his mind, the job is not done until DePaul — which has four Sweet 16 appearances but never has made it to a regional final — reaches its goal of going deeper in the NCAA Tournament. Anything else at this point is outside noise to Bruno.
“People ask me, ‘Why are you still doing this?’ and I say, ‘Because we haven’t won a national championship or gone to the Final Four yet,'” Bruno said. ” ‘The Famous Final Scene’ is a song by Bob Seger, and I say that because we haven’t created our famous final scene for DePaul women’s basketball yet. I am greatly appreciative for this honor, but that’s where my mind is at right now.”
