UNCASVILLE — UConn women’s basketball legend Tina Charles played her last WNBA game on Sept. 10, 2025 in the same place where her career began, wearing a Connecticut Sun jersey on the court at Mohegan Sun Arena.
No one knew at the time that the Sun’s season-ending 88-72 loss to the Atlanta Dream would mark Charles’ final moment as a professional basketball player. It came as a surprise to most of her former teammates when the future Hall of Famer officially announced her retirement Tuesday after 15 years.
“I was shocked,” Sun guard Saniya Rivers said Wednesday. “She’s done a lot for this game. I know I’ve only been here the one time, one year, but she was my vet, so I’m very blessed to have been able to share a jersey with her. She spoke a lot of words of wisdom into me, a lot of motivation, so I’m just blessed to have called her my teammate.”
Charles was the first No. 1 draft pick in Sun history when she was selected out of UConn in 2010. She retires as the WNBA’s all-time leader in rebounds (4,262), double-doubles (201) and made field goals (3,364), and she is second all-time in scoring (8,396 points) behind only fellow UConn great Diana Taurasi. Charles was the 2012 WNBA MVP, a nine-time All-WNBA selection, an eight-time All-Star and a three-time All-Defensive team member. She was also a three-time Olympic gold medalist and three-time World Cup gold medalist with Team USA from 2012-20.
“(Her legacy) is just excellence,” Sun general manager Morgan Tuck said. “There’s only a handful of players that have been as successful as Tina, and the fact that she did it over 14, 15 years, that’s hard to do. Most people don’t make it that long, so I think any time someone’s going to think of Tina Charles, no matter where she played whether that’s college, pro, overseas, Olympics, you’re going to think of excellence.”
Charles was a perennial All-Star with the Sun from 2010-13, then with the New York Liberty from 2014-19, but the latter part of her career was tumultuous. She was medically excused from the 2020 WNBA season held amid the COVID-19 pandemic due to extrinsic asthma, then returned to the league with the Washington Mystics in 2021. She played 16 games with the Phoenix Mercury in 2022 before agreeing to a contract divorce with the franchise and signing with the Seattle Storm for the final 18 games of the season. She went unsigned as a free agent in 2023, then returned to the league for a season with the Atlanta Dream in 2024.
When Tuck, a fellow UConn alum, took over as the Sun’s general manager entering the 2025 seasons, she jumped at the opportunity to bring Charles back to the franchise that drafted her. Tuck remembers watching in high school when Charles helped lead the Huskies to back-to-back undefeated NCAA titles in 2009 and ’10, and she said the legendary center was part of the reason she committed to UConn in 2012.
“She’s literally done everything that any basketball player could dream of doing,” Tuck said. “I think she retired at a time where it’s like, watching her play, you didn’t think that she needed to retire, so I’m glad she got to go out on her own terms and be celebrated in a way that shows she’s one of the best to ever touch a basketball. I think it’s really cool that we got a chance to have her start and end her career in Connecticut.”
Connecticut center Brittney Griner never got to share the court with Charles in the WNBA, but the UConn legend was one of her first veteran leaders when she began competing on the USA Basketball senior national team. Griner won a gold medal alongside Charles in her debut at the 2014 FIBA World Cup, and they also brought home gold together from the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games as well as the 2018 World Cup.
While she’s sad to see Charles’ career end, Griner said she won’t miss trying to guard the future Hall of Famer’s signature move in the post.
“Tina’s a special person, always competed hard. I can hear her yelling right now, doing that hook shot and the ref giving her that call, and I’m just like, ‘What?! How?'” Griner reminisced with a grin Wednesday. “I know whatever she does after basketball, I know it’s going to be good and she’s going to do it to the fullest, because that’s what she did with her career.”
Charles may not be on the court anymore, but her impact is still felt on the Sun’s current roster. Forward Aneesah Morrow said Charles constantly reminded during her rookie season her to slow down her game and play at her own pace, and that advice sticks with her as she enters her second year in the WNBA.
“I felt like the speed of the game, I was trying to catch up to it majority of the time, because the league does move a lot faster,” Morrow said. “She always told me, if you take one dribble or one drive, you can get past any opponent. You’ll see that in a few of my games I’ve done that already, just taking my time, reading the defender and getting to the spots I want to get to.”
Former UConn standout Aaliyah Edwards trained with Charles several times when the veteran returned to visit Storrs during Edwards’ college career, and Edwards finally got to share the court with Charles as a teammate in 2025 after she was traded from the Washington Mystics to the Sun midseason. Edwards said the Huskies great was like an older sister to her, and she’ll always remember the joy that the Charles brought to the practice gym and the locker room.
“When I first saw the news, it was kind of sad knowing that last season was my last season playing with her, playing against her or playing alongside her,” Edwards said. “It just meant the world to me. She’s such a bright light. She always made me laugh, always made me happy, but also on the court, she pushed me to challenge myself and pushed me to continue to be a great player and not settle for being average. So shoutout to Tina — I love you Tina!”
