In the middle of another UCLA women’s basketball run, the story of ucla womens bb coach Cori Close is also a family story. Her mother, Patti Close, has become a familiar presence at Bruins games, a steady figure who sits, travels, and speaks with the kind of openness that makes players feel they are being welcomed into something larger than a roster.
Who is “Mother Bruin” to UCLA?
Known to the team as “Mother Bruin, ” Patti Close is more than a proud parent watching from the stands. She has been a fixture at UCLA women’s basketball games since her daughter took the job in 2011, and she has traveled with the team to Europe and Africa. Patti has said she loves the players and jokes that she falls in love with them and then has to watch them graduate. That mix of affection and routine has made her part of the program’s daily life.
At age 80, Patti still drives herself to games and arrives an hour before tipoff. After the final buzzer, she heads to the interview room for postgame recaps. She also shows up early for recruit dinners at Cori’s home and makes her pitch to incoming players’ families. On game nights, she often stays at Cori’s house rather than making the drive back to the San Fernando Valley. The program, in turn, has given her a role after the death of her husband, Don Close, in 2021.
How does family shape Cori Close’s coaching?
The family influence runs through the coach herself. Cori Close has been UCLA’s head coach since 2011, and the program has grown into one of the most consistent in the country over more than a decade. Before UCLA, she spent seven seasons as associate head coach at Florida State and also had an earlier stint on the UCLA staff in 1994 and 1995. She played at UC Santa Barbara, where she was a team captain in 1992 and 1993 and helped lead the Gauchos to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances.
That background matters because Close has said the way she leads the UCLA women’s basketball team is rooted in the experience her father created when he coached soccer for her and her friends. She described him as “a girl dad before he really knew what that was. ” Don Close, a former college football player, later coached at Milpitas High School and taught health and psychology for three decades. He died in 2021 after battling vascular dementia.
Why does the support around the team matter now?
The broader context is success, pressure, and what it takes to stay steady inside an elite program. In the 2024-25 season, UCLA reached its first-ever Final Four and won the Big Ten Tournament championship. Close also swept the, Naismith, USBWA, and WBCA Coach of the Year awards. Even with that achievement, she has spoken openly about the strain of coaching in today’s college sports environment and has acknowledged that she has considered going to the WNBA, though she said “Not yet. ”
That tension gives Patti’s presence added meaning. Cori Close has said the team’s kindness toward her mother gives Patti purpose, especially after Don’s death. The support feels personal, but it also reflects something institutional: UCLA’s culture is built on relationships as much as results. In that sense, ucla womens bb coach Cori Close is not just managing basketball. She is sustaining a world where players, parents, and staff are all part of the same emotional architecture.
What does the team gain from that closeness?
The answer appears in the small details. Patti shows up early. She learns names. She sits through games and talks with families. Cori and Patti share what the coach calls “afterglow” after games, a private moment that follows the public pressure of the night. Those routines may not appear on a stat sheet, but they help explain why the Bruins feel so connected.
That connection has stayed visible as the program has climbed. Whether it is the family memory behind Cori’s coaching or Patti’s warm presence on the sideline, the human side of the Bruins keeps giving the season a fuller shape. For ucla womens bb coach Cori Close, the next challenge is still about winning at the highest level. But around her, the quiet support of “Mother Bruin” suggests that the program’s deepest strength may be the trust it has learned to build, one game and one conversation at a time.
