As the winningest coach in Arizona State University’s women’s basketball history, Charli Turner Thorne has nothing to prove. After working as a head coach for 25 years, Turner Thorne retired in 2022 but remains active in the basketball community. Now, as a scout for the Phoenix Mercury and an ASU professor, Turner Thorne has wisdom to shed on how to be an adaptable coach for players and how to win. 

Answers have been lightly edited for clarity. 

What makes a good coach?

Coaching is a very interesting profession. You don’t go to school for it; there are no qualifications. That’s why, when you talk to people who have played either in high school or sometimes in college, sometimes they’ve had some really bad experiences because we don’t have to get certified. Almost anybody can coach. 

Coaching – it’s who you played for, who you’ve worked with, and your own self education. That pretty much dictates how good you are. 

Being able to have high EQ, to motivate at individual and team levels makes a really effective teacher. Those are kind of the things that define the most successful coaches, just emotional resiliency and a level of toughness, where you can work every day, and be there for people.

What do you like about coaching? 

It’s a pretty cool profession in terms of all the hats you wear. Not only do you have to have a lot of different skills – hard and soft – but you also have to continually grow and adapt. The game continues to change. 

When you coached, what was a common goal for you? 

My goal as a coach was to just kind of grow our women into strong, caring leaders and just be prepared to do anything that they want to in life. That was our biggest objective. And yes, we won it. We had to win games. We were very blessed in that way. We had good people and good staff, and we won plenty. Then we got to really impact these young women, which was the thing that was by far the most gratifying.

Why is it important to empower young players as a team? 

It is important because when you look at our society right now – all the hatred, not being for other people and people not even being able to vote for the greater good – it’s brutal. Maybe we have too many people playing individual sports, or not playing at all. But sports does that. It teaches you the power of a team. It teaches you how to give yourself over to the greater good and it’s unbelievable.

How do you manage leading your team on and off the court?

If you don’t care about your people. If you’re not leading them as people first, when it’s on the court, you can’t squeeze them. So I thought we really did a good job through our 25 years, my coaching staff and different people just doing that – running our program, having that culture where people generally cared about each other and had each other’s back no matter what and trusted each other. Then, we had fun.

How did you navigate assisting your players with the mental health challenges that may come with being a student athlete?

As coaches, we still have to coach mindset. We have longer term daily relationships with (the players). Obviously, we had to be there every day to support them, but I think having a life coach helped. I guess one of my strengths is that I’m pretty good at being in tune with my own people. I can walk into the gym and just notice when someone’s energy is off for something.

As a coach, it’s a lifestyle. It’s not a job. You work every day of your life. It’s kind of like a parent, but you don’t have three kids, you have 13, and you have all your staff. It’s really stressful, and it’s exhausting.

What about coaching women’s basketball at ASU is different from other schools?

We’re never going to be one of the most funded programs in our conference. We’re a very saturated sports town, with gorgeous weather during our season. So our competition for fans is brutal. That’s the footprint of all the top women’s basketball programs in the nation: a great fan base.”

Sports brought you into this world of prestige. Can you speak on that? Or what has basketball done for you?

I mean, I am so indebted because I would never have been able to go to Stanford. We didn’t have any money for me to go to college. I would have been just taking out student loans and having a job. It allowed me to go to my dream school. From there, I went to the University of Washington, and I was a graduate assistant coach, and they paid for my grad. I got my master’s in educational psychology and was kind of testing the waters in academia and coaching. Then I got offered a job.

And then I’ve traveled all over the world. My kids have traveled all over the world. I always say travel is kind of an education unto itself. That was something that basketball afforded me, but it also afforded my players and my own kids.

Is learning a big theme in your life?

I am a life learner. Yeah, I love to learn. I love to read. I have to admit, I get a little down the rabbit hole with coaching, because you just start grinding constantly, recruiting and preparing, and taking care of all your players. But yes, I had a phenomenal career in terms of just being able to experience a lot of different things.

Who is someone you learned from throughout your career? 

I played for Tara VanDerveer, who is one of the all-time great college women’s coaches ever. Tara was very visionary, like she just saw where the game was going, and she kept adapting. That was her superpower, in terms of just always being ahead of the curve.

I took a number of things from Tara in terms of her overall organization, the different goal sheets that we had and the structure that we had.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Southern California, so the San Fernando Valley. I lived in Missouri for three years while my father was getting his doctorate at the University of Missouri, and then we moved back because he actually got a position at UCLA. So, I was born in Orange County and grew up in the San Fernando Valley. Tragically, I’m a Valley Girl.

How did you find your love for athletics when you were growing up? 

Back then, there weren’t opportunities for girls, so (my parents) did not push me into sports at all. I had an older sister, and then my brother, and then me. I tended to hang more with my brother. I was a latchkey kid, and he had baseball practice, so I just had to go practice one day. They put me out there, and then they called my mom. They said, “Hey, would your daughter like to play?” So, I just kind of found myself there because there weren’t as many girls’ leagues and stuff like that. So I did play with the boys.

Where did you go to school? 

When I was growing up, they were trying to integrate schools, so they were going to cut girls’ sports to fund schools. I love sports, and I really wanted to play high school sports. So I asked my mom if I could go to a private school so that I could make sure sports were there. We looked into it and found that Alameda High School had really good girls’ sports. It was a Catholic high school, and I was not raised Catholic, but it was good for me. We had really good sports teams. I was recruited to play women’s basketball at Stanford, and I received a full scholarship.

Did you encourage your kids to play sports when they were young? 

Yes, I did. We were into it with sports, but not just because I thought they were going to be professional athletes. I just value what sport does. You get friends and learn all the life skills.

Was it difficult to balance family and coaching? 

It was very hard to balance; it was hard to be present, I was there, and I did my best. Truthfully, I probably wasn’t as present as I wanted to be at times, and then just didn’t have as much time. So I was a big advocate for quality time over quantity because that was my life.

What is life for you now, after coaching for ASU?

I’m living my best life right now because I’m doing gigs. I have all these gigs that I really enjoy. I’m learning new skills. I scout for the Mercury, so I travel all over the country, watch practices and games, and write reports for them. I also do some pro scouting for them as well. Then I teach, I’m just teaching one class a semester.