Diana Taurasi’s #3 jersey will forever be associated with dominance and longevity, but behind the jersey, championships, and records was a family whose sacrifices helped shape Taurasi and her mentality for two decades in the WNBA. Now, she has opened up about their contributions.

During her Phoenix Mercury Ring of Honor induction on August 16, Taurasi made it clear during her speech that her parents and the example they set for her and her sister, Jessika, were what brought her here. Taurasi’s powerful address was shared via a clip posted by the WNBA on X

“My parents did everything for my sister and I. They moved countries. They came somewhere where they didn’t know the language… they taught me what it meant to show up every single day for your family. I remember my dad would get in the car at 4:00 a.m., drive to his metal sheet work factory an hour and a half away, and he would leave that early to miss traffic, and then he would sleep in the parking lot. And he did that every single day for 50 years.”

Diana Taurasi‘s parents, Mario and Liliana Taurasi, lived in Argentina following Mario’s career in Italy as a soccer goalkeeper. They moved to California in 1978, two and four years before they had Jessika and Diana, and that’s where the future WNBA great saw her father work in a sheet metal factory. She’s spoken about this before, even adding one particularly gruesome event.

“I watched Dad go to work every day from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. as a sheet metal worker in a factory, no matter what, not because it was fun,” she told La Gazzetta Italiana in October 2021. “I remember, one time, dad had accidentally cut off the tip of one of his fingers, and he just went to work the next day.”

Those lessons eventually followed Taurasi from her childhood in California to UConn and Phoenix, where she spent all 20 years of her legendary career, including becoming the league’s all-time leading scorer.

Phoenix Turns Diana Taurasi’s Final Chapter Into a Lasting Legacy

The Ring of Honor ceremony in Phoenix was a big day for the Mercury, who did much to celebrate their franchise legend’s jersey retirement. Leading up to the event, team president Vince Kozar explained that one person from every team she has been a part of would appear during the ceremony, explaining that the team wanted to make the day as grand as possible.

Outside of the arena, it was a citywide affair. Three days before the ceremony, the city of Phoenix renamed 7489 Taurasi Way (her point total when she became the league’s leading scorer) to 10646 Taurasi Way (her career total when she retired), and saw a customization to a court in Harmon Park, prominently featuring her #3 and a GOAT logo.

In the pregame press conference leading up to the ceremony, Taurasi made it clear that she hoped that her career inspired players to strive to be better.

“Hopefully it was someone that you wanted to be around,” she said. “That you wanted to watch, that you wanted to play hard for, that you wanted to come to the gym early cause you knew we were gonna compete and have a good time…Basketball can get very serious, it can get tense. And I always wanted to be in the locker room and be that person, no matter who it was. Whether you played a lot of minutes, whether you didn’t play at all. I wanted to be the person that galvanized everyone.”

Diana Taurasi became the fifth jersey that the Mercury have retired in their history. The previous names were Michele Timms (7), Penny Taylor (13), Jennifer Gillom (22), and Bridget Pettis (32), with Taurasi’s No. 3 jersey now joining them up in the rafters. Taurasi’s journey from the small town of Chino, California, to having streets named after her in Phoenix, Arizona, is a testament to her remarkable career. She led the Mercury to three championships, even winning the Finals MVP for two of them. She holds the second-most All-Star nominations, with 11, right behind Sue Bird with 13.

Now, that legend has been immortalized within the walls of the Mortgage Matchup Center for generations of future women’s basketball players to see.