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Craig Mattick:
Welcome to another edition of In Play. I'm Craig Mattick. Today's guest was a part of the beginning of sanctioned girls' basketball in South Dakota back in the mid-1970s. Her school was a dominant team in the mid to late '70s. She won three straight state basketball titles, went on to become a dominant player in college and then played professionally in Europe.
Joining us from Colorado, the former Colorado Buffalo, the former Yankton Gazelle, Lisa Van Goor. Lisa, welcome to In Play.
Lisa Van Goor:
Well, thank you. Thank you for having me.
Craig Mattick:
So you're living in Colorado. I think you're just north of Denver. You know, you're over there by Boulder. You get to see the Rocky Mountains every morning, right?
Lisa Van Goor:
We certainly do. We live outside of Boulder, so we get to wake up every morning and look at the mountains. And we're really lucky to live where we are, that's for sure.
Craig Mattick:
And when you were growing up in Yankton, you got to see the Missouri River every morning. How about that?
Lisa Van Goor:
Well, you know, I go back and I ... You know, people, when you tell them that you're from South Dakota, they just imagine farm, fields, and cows and everything. I said, "No. We spent a lot of our time out on the river or on Lewis and Clark Lake." So even playing basketball, we would find a way. Everything kind of revolved around, especially when you got into high school, around recreation out there.
Craig Mattick:
Basketball has been a big part of your life. When did you remember first picking up a basketball?
Lisa Van Goor:
Well, to be quite honest with you, I do remember a little bit in fifth grade at recess, picking up a basketball and shooting it around. I'm like, "Oh, this is kind of cool," but I didn't really get serious. I was very clumsy, very awkward, very tall for my age and I wasn't very coordinated. I was always the last one picked, especially in dodgeball because you know it was-
Craig Mattick:
Aww.
Lisa Van Goor:
So I was one of those kind of, made fun of. I wouldn't say bullied, but just made fun of kids. I was very tall, very awkward. It was kind of hard growing up.
And then probably in 1976, we heard this rumor that this fantastic basketball player from New York City was moving into the house next to the reformed church. Her dad was a reform minister that grew up in Iowa and he was just coming back to the Midwest with his family.
Craig Mattick:
You're not talking about Dona Ray-Reed, are you?
Lisa Van Goor:
No, I'm talking about Diane Hiemstra.
Craig Mattick:
Oh, yes.
Lisa Van Goor:
Diane Hiemstra came in. She was very accomplished. I mean, all we heard was how fantastic she was, and we were the same age. And so I kind of took my little shy self over there and got to know her and started playing basketball. And her dad's like, "Why aren't you at basketball camp and why are ..." I was probably about six foot, maybe 6'1" at that time. And so her dad kind of pushed me to go out, and the rest is history.
Fortunately, I had great coaches at Yankton, starting with Bob Winter, and Bob Winter saw potential. I don't know how he saw potential because let me tell you, I can't tell you how many times I was going to quit my freshman year because I was so awkward and so clumsy, but he kept after me. He kept after me practicing. And Diane and I would play, go to Nash gym.
I mean, we would do anything to shoot baskets. And of course, I didn't have a basketball hoop at my house growing up, so I bugged the neighbors and I was always over next door playing basketball at my neighbor's house or by at Diane's house.
Craig Mattick:
You were the sixth of the seven kids in the Van Goor family. Were you all tall, all you guys?
Lisa Van Goor:
All of us were ... I would say, the run of the family is my older sister and she's 5'8", but none of them ... I had a brother that's five years older, that was five years older than me. He went out for cross country and he was really good in cross country. And then there was my brother, Joe who everybody knows. I'm known as Joe Van Goor's sister back in Yankton.
He went out for ... He was on the high school basketball team when the Bucks won the state tournament in '78. So at that time, he was a senior, I was a sophomore. We won the state tournament the same school year back in the day. But none of my other brothers nor my sisters were really athletic. They were brilliant, very, very smart. One's a doctor, one's a lawyer and we kind of all went our own ways. But like I said, I decided, "If I'm going to be good at something, I might as well be good at basketball."
Craig Mattick:
Sanctioned girls' basketball didn't start in South Dakota until 1975. That's about the time you were, what, about eighth grade? What do you remember about girls basketball getting started as a sanctioned sport there back in the mid-'70s?
Lisa Van Goor:
Well, I remember it was huge in 1975 when the Gazelles won the very first state tournament. A lot of great players were on that team, players that went on to play in college.
Craig Mattick:
Yup. Loaded.
Lisa Van Goor:
Northern State, School of Mines, you know? So you know, back then you didn't have a lot of role models, but to come out of the block and win a state tournament, so it was something that was really cool. We had already established that kind of winning dynasty. And Bob Winter did everything he could to push us and get us to go out and practice.
So I was really, really lucky to be at the beginning of the basketball. I wouldn't say I was at the very start, but it was kind of a cool thing. The only thing I would say that was the drawback, and obviously they've changed it was playing in the fall.
Everybody knew about Diane Hiemstra. Diane Hiemstra started when she was a freshman at Yankton High School and she played on several, back then they had regional, what they called sports festival. It was kind of a junior Olympics so to speak. And Diane played on several of those teams, representing the region that included South Dakota.
So, college coaches knew about her, but they didn't know really about me until they were recruiting Diane. And that's how I got recruited to Colorado. They saw me on a tape. They were recruiting Diane and they were talking to Diane and they got the tape. They said, "Wait, who's the big girl?"
Craig Mattick:
"Who's wearing number 55? We need to get a hold of that one."
Lisa Van Goor:
Yeah. So that's thanks to Diane, I don't think I would've been noticed. Obviously, I shot up in the recruiting wars pretty significantly.
Craig Mattick:
1975 though, I mean, Yankton wins the title. They beat Watertown and Dona Ray-Reed was, I think in that tournament. I mean, she was an awesome player. Of course you had Diane too. I mean, that was a pretty good punch for a while, for the Gazelles.
Lisa Van Goor:
Yes. I wasn't really playing too much. I was traveling with the varsity. I would play on the B team and then I would dress for the varsity and I was one of the 12 that got selected. I think it was Dona Ray's senior year and our probably sophomore year that I got to play with her on the varsity.
Craig Mattick:
1976, Yankton made it to the state tournament, but placed third, but then 1977 began. What a great three-year run for the Gazelles, three state championships. I think you went like 86 and three during that time. And during that stretch you mentioned some of these players, but what was making Yankton so good those three years that you win three straight titles?
Lisa Van Goor:
Well, obviously I think Yankton had a pretty rich basketball tradition on the boys' side, and that was due to Bob Winter. I really think he was a good coach. He won the Boys State tournament in '74 and then he transitions into girls basketball in '75. And then-
Craig Mattick:
He was only going to do it for one year though, only one year, he said, "I'm only going to do this."
Lisa Van Goor:
Yeah, and that was the same way out in Colorado. So I think once things got kind of started, and he won that first state tournament, there was always rumors that he was going to leave or go coach somewhere else, but he fortunately, stayed. And you know what he did? He was a great motivator. He motivated me in a way that wanted to make me a better player and to keep on working at it.
I can't tell you the hours I spent shooting a basketball, going and playing noontime ball in the back of Nash gym at Yankton College. He just motivated people to be the best. He was a great motivator and he ran these basketball camps at Yankton College that were regionally, the best girls' basketball camps, girls' and boys' basketball camps that you could go to.
And so we had some of the top players from other schools in the Class A back then, some from Sioux Falls, some from Brandon Valley, Brookings that would come back to these camps. So, the games were epic. I had great competition in high school, playing in the summertime against some of the better players in the state, but also I played against guys because I didn't have anybody else to compete with that was my size.
Craig Mattick:
You talked about being maybe a little clumsy early on. When did that change? When did you get a lot more confidence, and your body able to do what you wanted it to do?
Lisa Van Goor:
I would say between my sophomore and junior year, I told Bob Winter, who is also a track coach. He wanted me to be a hurdler and I said, "No, I want to shoot baskets. I want to practice." And I said, "This is what I'll do. After school every day, I'll go over to the park and I know you guys," we always ran a mile around the park before we went back over to run practice. So I said, "You can check on me every day to make sure I'm doing what I'm doing, but I am not going out for track."
And he hemmed and hawed. You know, I'm not going to disagree that being a track athlete, I wasn't the best, but it definitely helped my basketball. But that's when I really had the spring and the summer to really work on my game and improve it. And I think it was that year that my mom, who was very traditional, very conservative, didn't have very many kids, let alone a daughter go out for athletics. So she kind of, I wouldn't say was fighting me. She was a little resistant to let me work so much time.
She thought I should be home or finding a job to earn money for college. And then finally, Bob Winter went over to her and said, "Listen, you need to let her practice. You need to let her play because she is going to earn a college scholarship. And how much can you say that about the rest of your kids?" Not to say that my brothers, they were in ROTC, so they had their school paid for, but when you get to be the sixth out of seven, your college prospects don't look great.
So he convinced her, it's like, "Let her play," and she reluctantly let me play, but it was interesting, those first, between my sophomore and junior year because I was always playing.
Craig Mattick:
1977, Yankton wins the state title beating Mitchell 49 to 30. What do you remember from that championship game?
Lisa Van Goor:
I remember getting to play. I think I remember, well, yeah, '77, I got to go in and play. It was Dona's last year. Very little though. Like I said, I do remember playing. I do remember winning. I do remember the feeling of coming into Yankton and having a parade through town and then the celebration in the high school gym. I thought, "This is really freaking cool." So like I said, between that sophomore year and junior year, I really worked and earned myself a starting position on the varsity in my junior year.
Craig Mattick:
Yeah, 1978, you win the second straight title, and of course you beat Belle Fourche that year by 10. How many points did you score in that game? Do you remember?
Lisa Van Goor:
Oh, my gosh. You probably know better than I do. I don't. I don't remember how many points I scored, but I know both Diane ... I think Diane probably had well over 20 points and I probably had somewhere in the teens, probably a couple of block shots. I remember the game a little bit.
I'm pretty sure it was in Rapid City that year. And being Belle Fourche was a big time deal. We were always compared to the team, and they had a really great player. I think her name was Cathy Coyle. We had heard all about this, so it was exciting to come in and play against them, and dominate them, and win.
Craig Mattick:
And then your senior year, 1979, Gazelles going for their third straight title. And oh, what a game that was, a record-breaking game. In fact, there are two records that are still on the books from that game in 1979. The title game was against Rapid City Stevens. The final was 71-59. It's the most points scored by both teams in a championship game. That record, to my surprise and maybe to yours, Lisa, it is still on the books.
Lisa Van Goor:
That is very surprising.
Craig Mattick:
The other one, 1979. Do you know which record still stands? Want to guess that one?
Lisa Van Goor:
Most blocked shots? Most rebounds?
Craig Mattick:
I'm sorry to say, they don't keep track of blocked shots, otherwise I'm assuming that you would be there, Lisa. But no, Diane Hiemstra scored 34 in that championship game.
Lisa Van Goor:
That's right. I do ... Yes, I do ... See, I just need little prompts, little kind of jabs.
Craig Mattick:
So what do you remember about that championship? Your third, going out a senior as a champ?
Lisa Van Goor:
It was pretty sweet, and it was pretty sweet knowing that it wasn't over for me, that I was going to go on and play at college and earn a scholarship. Like I said, recruiting was a little different back then. We were under the AIAW, so the recruiting rules were a little different.
We played in the fall and really, I had been making visits and stuff like that. It was kind of nice because I wasn't playing during the time that I was making all these visits, so to speak. It was a weird time back in the history with us playing in the fall and then the different rules. So we had to pay for our way to go visit a school.
So I know my brother and I, Tony went up to Minnesota, we went to Creighton. My parents flew me out to Colorado and then my parents drove Diane and I down to Nebraska and K-State and Missouri. I was going to go visit Missouri. But it wasn't until after I settled on it, I got selected to play in a high school All-American game in New York that, I think I got really noticed by all these ... They're like, "Wait a minute. She's from South Dakota? Wait, isn't there another South Dakota girl? Wait, there's two Division I players?"
I think we confused a lot of people back then because Diane was a hot commodity, there's no doubt about it. I mean, she was a star for four years.
Craig Mattick:
So why Colorado? What made them be the number one pick?
Lisa Van Goor:
For me-
Craig Mattick:
Yeah.
Lisa Van Goor:
... it was coming in on my recruiting trip, coming down from Denver over what we call the Davidson Mesa and seeing the whole campus in front of you, the Flatiron Mountains and just the beauty of it. I mean, we grew up in a beautiful place in Yankton, there's no doubt about it, but oh my gosh, the sheer beauty. They took me up in the mountains. They took me up to Flagstaff, which overlooks the whole city.
Just a beautiful place. But also, just my teammates. My teammates were genuine. A few of them were transfers, and they had a really good team. They went to the tournament that year, but they just needed that ... There was a place for me. There was a place for me to come in and start right away and contribute right away, and that's why I chose Colorado.
Craig Mattick:
Yeah. Your freshman year at Colorado, you started all 33 games, 18 points a game. When did you feel comfortable playing college basketball?
Lisa Van Goor:
You know, I just got asked that question last week. They were like, "Those are amazing stats for a freshman." And as I mentioned before, we really didn't have a whole lot of competition to practice against and play against. So I went through, especially those last few years in high school, playing against guys, guys that were in their 20s and 30s. I played against guys that were playing at Mount Marty Yankton College. So I think playing against guys, especially guys bigger, I felt comfortable. I can't describe it. I don't know why, but I just felt really comfortable.
And I don't know if you know this story. I was recruited by a different coach at Colorado. Her name was Rene Portland. And so this is all when Title IX was coming into effect, and the NCAA really didn't want anything to do with women's sports. So there was the AIAW.
Well, Colorado was kind out of compliance with Title IX and so they had to cut a bunch of minor sports so they could add women's sports, which is kind of the very, very ... You want to talk about the beginnings of Title IX and everything, that's where it really got to be a issue for a lot of the colleges and universities because they had to make tough decisions on cutting men's sports so they have an equal amount of scholarships for women.
And so when they cut all these sports, the coach said she's out of here. She's going to go back. She went on and was very successful at Penn State. But then, along comes Sox Walseth. Do you know that name?
Craig Mattick:
You know what? I don't remember Sox at all. I don't remember Ceal Barry either, the two coaches that you played under.
Lisa Van Goor:
Sox Walseth was a South Dakota native. He grew up in Pierre, South Dakota, played team. I think he went out for basketball. This is a funny story. He was on the GI Bill and he came to Colorado to go on the GI Bill, and he was standing in some line and they were asking if there were any guys that wanted to play basketball.
And so he ended up playing for CU and then he became the men's ... I mean, years later, he became the head men's coach for the University of Colorado men's program. Very successful. My husband, matter of fact, played for Sox back in the day. And so Sox was there. And two years before I got there, he had gotten fired by the men's program, so he was still on staff.
Rene leaves and goes to Penn State and Sox comes in. She told me to leave Colorado because they were like, "Well, they don't have money. You're going to take buses everywhere. You're going to eat at McDonald's. This is not the place for you. You need to look at other places." So I was out on my letter of intent looking at going to Oregon.
Diane Hiemstra had signed at Oregon. But he drove up to Yankton, South Dakota. Diane and I had been out at the lake, and he talked me into staying at the University of Colorado. I think this was July before my freshman year, and talked me into staying at Colorado. Like I said, it was a match made in heaven. He never let me be a freshman. My teammates never let me be a freshman, so to speak because I filled a void that they desperately needed, and we just had that kinship amongst us.
Sox and I and my dad would come to Boulder all the time, and he and Sox would just sit and have coffee at Perkins for hours and hours talking about their days. He, matter of fact, did coach at South Dakota State. I think after he finished college, he went back to South Dakota and coached at South Dakota State for many years.
Craig Mattick:
Your freshman, sophomore and junior year, you start every game, you play every game, and then here comes your senior year at Colorado and look who shows up. Your former teammate, Diane Hiemstra, going to play with you as a senior.
Lisa Van Goor:
We played each other our freshman year. We played at Oregon and we lost to them. And after the game Diane's like, "Yeah. Not happy here. Want more playing time." And Sox was like, "Another South Dakota girl? Come on over."
Craig Mattick:
Yes, yes.
Lisa Van Goor:
And so Diane came, and then we also had recruited our chief nemesis when I was playing high school basketball. The only team that we lost to was Brookings.
Craig Mattick:
Oh, you're talking about Kris Holwerda. Yeah.
Lisa Van Goor:
Kris Holwerda. So, Kris Holwerda signed at the same time. So at one point, they would do the introductions for the University of Colorado and it's like Diane Hiemstra, Yankton, South Dakota, Lisa Van Goor, Yankton, South Dakota, Kris Holwerda, Brookings, South Dakota. So people were like, "Where are we? Are we at the University of South Dakota or what?"
So it was a great memory and it was great too, because I grew up with Kris in Yankton until, I think our junior high, she moved to Brookings and her dad became the athletic director and the coach at Brookings High School, and that's the only team we ever lost to.
Craig Mattick:
You only played four games though, as a senior. What happened? What was the injury?
Lisa Van Goor:
The injury was a stress fracture. We were going on a road trip and we had started the season like gangbusters. You know, Ceal was the new coach, Sox had retired, and so we started the season beating a fourth ranked team at home, and we were off to the races and then I got hurt. Couldn't walk and couldn't figure out what was wrong. So I played very little of those next two games and they determined I had a stress fracture.
Craig Mattick:
Well, it allowed you to come back for another year, 1985.
Lisa Van Goor:
It did, but I still had some injuries, so I only played half that year. And so in total, I played three and a half years at Colorado. So I wouldn't say it was my best two years I've ever had of my career playing basketball, but ...
Craig Mattick:
But you still scored more than 2,000 points. You had over 1,100 rebounds, almost 300 shots blocked. I mean, you were the first Colorado player, male or female to score more than 2,000 points. You're a finalist twice for National Player of the Year. That's not a bad career for Colorado.
Lisa Van Goor:
Not a bad career. No. You know what? I really can't complain about all that.
Craig Mattick:
But you weren't done. You weren't done though playing basketball because then pro basketball comes calling. Of course, there wasn't anything of course in the United States for women to play pro basketball, but Europe came calling. Seven years, yeah.
Lisa Van Goor:
I hadn't even really thought of it. Somebody had contacted my coach Ceal Barry and said, "Hey, we're looking for a center to play in East France." So I said, "I'll go. Sure, I'll go." They sent the contract, and the contract was full of stuff. So I guess they decided that I wanted too many changes to the contract, so didn't hear from them. Didn't hear from them.
But then I signed up with an agent out in New York who was representing all the top players in the country, and I got kind of a little discount because I was the Wade Trophy finalist and an all-American. So, he hooked me up. He's like, "Well, you can go to the beach or you can go and wear ski boots in Sweden." So I chose the Canary Islands, which are owned by Spain my very first year. What a great experience. I mean, I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Craig Mattick:
Well, you were second in the league in scoring when you were in Spain. They didn't know how to guard you there in Europe.
Lisa Van Goor:
Well, you know, as with anything, I think there was only one American at that time, or foreigner on a team. So my chief competition were against other Americans.
Craig Mattick:
So you played for Spain and Italy and France. How good were you at learning to speak the language while you were there?
Lisa Van Goor:
I would say Spanish, I was competent. Italian was a little bit, I spoke kind of a combination, Spanish, Italian. And then France, I wasn't there long enough to learn that I was taking ... French was really hard to learn.
So with the president of the club, I would speak Italian. And then there was a girl who grew up on the border of Spain and France, so I spoke Spanish with her. And then my other foreign teammate was from Bulgaria, we spoke English. And then everybody spoke French.
So it was really hard to learn French. I understood it, especially ... That's the first part that you learn of any of these languages, are all the basketball terms. Somehow if you don't ... My teammates hardly spoke any English, so you had to learn pretty quickly how to be assertive in learning the language.
Craig Mattick:
You played seven years in Europe, coming that sixth and seventh years. I mean, you're getting a little older. Things are going well-
Lisa Van Goor:
Falling apart.
Craig Mattick:
... but well, there may have been a few things that fall apart, but what was the best thing about those seven years in Europe?
Lisa Van Goor:
I tell people this a lot. In college, we led a very sheltered world. When you play Division I sports at a college level, you're around your teammates all the time. You live with them, you live and breathe basketball, and school and travel, and you lead a very ... Everything is kind of, I wouldn't say done for you, but things are made a little easier.
Going over to Europe, man, I came out of my shell because you couldn't be that shy. You would have to learn how to ask for something in a different language and be assertive. But they had the best lifestyle, I would say. They had a different view of living compared to the United States. The siestas at 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon, very family-oriented. Everywhere I went, I was kind of taken in by the families, my teammates' families. So, they were very warm and embracing.
I never felt in danger. I always felt safe. So, compared to these other places that some of these players go to, I couldn't even imagine. I couldn't imagine playing in some of these more, I would say, Third World countries like Russia or Eastern Europe. You know, that's scary. I played on a couple of national teams when I was in college, and we went to Yugoslavia and Romania and Cuba, and I'm like, "I don't know if I could live in any of these places." So I was really lucky when I went over and played professionally that I was in great places.
Craig Mattick:
Do you think about what it would've been like if the WNBA would've been around or even you trying to play today, you know?
Lisa Van Goor:
I think about it a lot, how wonderful that opportunity would've been, but I wouldn't have traded it for the experience that I had those seven years. How lucky was I to travel all over Europe and see Europe and get paid for something I love to do?
I just looked at it as a great, great thing, an opportunity. Would it have been great to play in the United States? Absolutely, but I was getting paid more money than those first couple years as a WNBA. And to this day, a lot of those players go over to Europe to play because they do get paid better than they do in the United States. Obviously, things have changed in a very short period of time, which is totally mind-blowing how one person could change the trajectory of a game.
Craig Mattick:
It's been great. It's been great for-
Lisa Van Goor:
Yeah, it's been awesome because there's been so many great players in the WNBA. And to just see the impact that one player or two players have had on growing the game and making that kind of impact is totally ... I'm thinking, "Why didn't that happen 20 years ago?"
Craig Mattick:
I could have seen you, and Hiemstra, and Holwerda being on the same team somewhere, playing for Chicago or something like that.
Lisa Van Goor:
I think so. I think so. I think by the time Diane got done playing, I want to say that she played ... Because I had another year of eligibility. I think she went over and played in Germany, a year maybe, and she just decided-
Craig Mattick:
Wasn't it-
Lisa Van Goor:
It wasn't an easy life. We didn't have email, we couldn't pick up the phone, we didn't have cell phones that we could pick up and call home. Mail took 10 days to two weeks to get home. So, it was a very different life. You were very isolated a little bit, but a lot of girls can't do that. Well, now they can because they have all those things.
Craig Mattick:
Lisa, you're in the Yankton Hall of Fame. You went in, in 1995 with Diane Hiemstra. You're in the Colorado Athletic Hall of Fame. You were the first female to go in, back in '99, South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame in 2009 and the South Dakota High School Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010. What do those honors mean to you, Lisa?
Lisa Van Goor:
I think now, looking back at all that, fortunately they did it after I was well done playing my career, I was old enough to really appreciate what I had accomplished. And to be honored for it, to be honored for something that I absolutely love doing, I mean, there's no other feeling like that.
The one coming up probably means as much to me as anything, going into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame. I can't even describe. It's like, "Did I actually accomplish all that?" So, that's what I think makes it so cool. It's like, "Wow, I really did that, and I did it with a lot of hard work." I wasn't always the best athlete out of everybody I played against, but I worked hard, and I was very well coached, and taught the fundamentals, and that was the result of it. So it's very gratifying to have these honors.
Craig Mattick:
After playing pro basketball, it's back to Colorado. You've been there ever since. What led you back to Colorado?
Lisa Van Goor:
I knew Colorado was always going to be home. I just didn't know what I was going to do with my life. I really didn't know. I had a biology degree, but I was so far removed from getting that degree. "Do I go back to school? What do I do?" It was really, really hard and I really wanted to go be in an athletic-related ... I thought about coaching, but I had just been traveling my whole life, changing teams every year, and I just wanted a place to set down roots.
I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. I knew I wanted to be affiliated with Colorado, so I just dug in, tried to find something. There was not a whole lot that my resume reflected that I had done other than play professional basketball and I had a college degree, but I just always knew Colorado was going to be home.
Craig Mattick:
Couple of more questions for you, Lisa. If there was a three-point line when you played in high school or college, how many points do you think you would've scored? How many shots would you have taken?
Lisa Van Goor:
Well, you know, I wasn't a true ... Until Ceal Barry came, I wasn't a true center. I would shoot outside quite a bit from the elbow. And then it was probably my fifth year that we went to the smaller ball and we had the three-point line and I'm like, "Wow."
You know, all the European players that I played against in the pros, one year in Spain, I had the captain of the Russian national team. She was my size and she was out shooting three-pointers, and I told her to get her butt inside and help me out with the other Americans that we were playing against.
But yeah, I think I would've been great. Really, I think I would've had a lot more points. And the girl that broke my record after 28 years has a three-point line and she played four years, and played more postseason games than I did, and she did it all with three points. So, the people that have the records now are the three-pointers. So it's kind of odd that I still am up there with points because I didn't have a three-point line.
And you know who'd have been really great is Diane Hiemstra. Diane Hiemstra would've been in the top five of, and so would Kris if we had the three-point line our whole college career.
Craig Mattick:
What do you think of the current college game? You can join the portal every year, go to a different team every year, the NIL money.
Lisa Van Goor:
I don't enjoy it. I feel bad for these coaches that have been in the game. You have to think so much outside of what the game of basketball is to accommodate this transfer portal and the NIL. They have to like, "Okay, where am I going to come up with enough money to have this player come play for me?"
It's changed. And obviously, I'm at Colorado. You may know all about Deion Sanders's model of using the portal and kicking players out to the portal if they weren't good enough to play. I don't like it, but it's changed what college sports is, and that's being amateurs, where it changes the definition of being a student-athlete. It used to be the NCAA put so much importance on being a student first and then an athlete second. This whole transfer portal and the NIL changes all that.
Obviously, for the Olympic sports and some of the women's sports, it's not as much of a deal and people are there to get a college degree, but it's really changed the whole definition of college sports, especially football and then basketball.
Craig Mattick:
Last one, Lisa. When you have the chance, when you talk to high school girls' basketball players about wanting to play in college, what advice do you give them?
Lisa Van Goor:
That's a good question. I've never ... You know, I am more exposed to the college seniors that are going off to decide if they want to play overseas or try the WNBA. I don't know that I've really spoken to a high school athlete about going to the next level. Hopefully, with my great-niece that plays for Sioux Falls Lincoln, she'll be a good enough player that I'll have that conversation, that she'll come to me and talk about it.
I don't know because it's a different world. I mean, even 10 years ago, it was completely different world of recruiting and the way that they communicate with recruits through social media and texting. I mean, when I was being recruited, we had the telephone, or they would call my high school coach and ask if they could talk to me. It's a different thing, especially with club sports. It's a different way of being recruited. I don't know if I can relate to them.
Craig Mattick:
And Lisa, what keeps you busy today?
Lisa Van Goor:
Well, after many years of working in athletics at CU, which was a dream of mine always to come back and be a part of the program and be a part of being around athletes, I left the athletic department. And a bunch of football guys, they were trying to help one of their former teammates who got cancer. He ended up passing away, and they were trying to raise money to help him with all the expenses and then try to help his family after he passed away. And there wasn't a mechanism in the university to do that.
So they started their own nonprofit to raise money for athletes that get into that situation where they can't go back to the university and, "Okay, I'm sick. I don't have insurance. I need to pay for treatment." So we've been in existence since 2005. We're very unique in what we do. There's not many universities that do for their alumni what we do. We're totally a separate non-profit, and that's kind of what I've been doing.
I've been the executive director at Buffs4Life since probably 2010, and we just help each other. I mean, it resonates with our former athletes especially because if we ever get into a situation that we need money or need help to get through an illness or a death in the family, then we would want to rely on our teammates to come and help us.
So that's what it resonates with our former athletes. Like I said, we're really unique in what we do. So that's been kind of my dabble job. I do contract work as well for the university, doing special events and grand openings and things like that. So that's what I've been doing
Craig Mattick:
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