WASHINGTON D.C. — All 49 elementary-school-aged campers attempted to mimic Azzi Fudd.
Spaced out along the baseline of the St. John’s College High School gym, the campers sprinted down the court five at a time while dribbling their basketballs.
They stopped at the orange plastic cone halfway down the court and tried to jab-step just like Azzi had done. After the cone, they ran the rest of the way and threw the ball up at the basket.
Azzi stood at center court watching. She helped campers correct their jab-step and cheered when they made a basket. She blew her whistle when it was time to move on and demonstrated the next drill in front of the campers and the small crowd of parents watching from the sideline.
This was her summer camp and families had paid for their children to meet and work with the UConn women’s basketball star.
Azzi took time to take a picture with each camper. Some were nervous, but Azzi always managed to make them feel comfortable, even if just for a second by coming up with a funny pose or laughing at herself. She let them jump on her back for a piggyback or challenge her to spin the ball on her finger.
When they pulled off their shoes at the end of the day and asked her to sign them, she did. Every single one. Basketball sneakers and Crocs. She signed shirts, sweats, camp flyers and backpacks. She smiled for every picture and selfie and even took four tries to nail down a TikTok dance one camper asked to film with her.
After each kid had left and the gym was once again empty and silent , she sat down on a metal chair and exhaled.
“Honestly, I’m gonna be real honest. I hate this stuff. I’ve dreaded it. I love being with kids, but I hate having to control things and run things,” she said. “I hate talking, it’s something that I really have to work on. My dad told me going in, my mom as well, they were like, ‘You need to act outside of yourself today. Don’t be Azzi today. You gotta be loud, outgoing. Use the bass in your voice.’ ”
UConn women's basketball sophomore Azzi Fudd hosted her annual summer camp last weekend in Washington D.C. The camp's proceeds were donated to the Pat Summitt Foundation in honor of Fudd's great-grandmother.
Azzi loves kids. She’s great with them: gentle and playful. It’s being the center of attention she despises and is just now embracing.
The spotlight found Azzi Fudd early in high school and grew exponentially. When you’re the first high school sophomore to win Gatorade National Player of the Year and the No. 1 recruit in the country, the limelight attaches itself to you and doesn’t let go.
When Azzi committed to play for UConn women’s basketball, the most notable women’s basketball program in the nation, the amount of eyes watching her skyrocketed.
She doesn’t stop to think about all this. She can’t. It’s too much. She’ll get stuck in the overwhelming thoughts already running through her head. She has nearly 15,000 followers on Twitter and 216,000 on Instagram.
“I mean I would really not call myself a celebrity or famous, but I worked so hard growing up, I did so much extra,” she said. “Like I grew up in the gym, lived in the gym. But that’s really what I did, and I believe that hard work really does pay off. And people noticed.”
UConn women's basketball sophomore Azzi Fudd hosted her annual summer camp last weekend in Washington D.C. The camp's proceeds were donated to the Pat Summitt Foundation in honor of Fudd's great-grandmother.
UConn women's basketball sophomore Azzi Fudd hosted her annual summer camp last weekend in Washington D.C. The camp's proceeds were donated to the Pat Summitt Foundation in honor of Fudd's great-grandmother.
Less than three months until her sophomore season, Azzi will be thrust into the spotlight more than ever. With UConn star Paige Bueckers out for the season with an ACL injury, Azzi will be the biggest name on the team and be looked at to lead both on and off the court.
Without Bueckers, Azzi returns as the team’s leading scorer. She’ll be the Huskies’ No. 1 option from the perimeter (she led last year with a 43.0 % clip from the arch) and will likely play the most minutes per game (she returns as the leader in this too with 27.9 minutes per game last season).
Through her first year in Storrs, Azzi learned how to handle the pressure. But she knows now she can no longer be afraid of the spotlight attention for the sake of her team and giving back to what matters most. Like hosting her annual summer camp in honor of her great-grandmother who passed away from Alzheimer’s.
“I think that makes you proud,” Tim Fudd, Azzi’s dad, said. “We’re really big on family and we kinda preach that and model that in all we do. I think that’s one of the things that kinda makes you sit back and go, ‘She’s getting it. She gets the message.’ ”
Katie Fudd, Azzi’s mom, said her daughter has never had a loud presence. When Azzi was a kid, Katie constantly reminded her to speak up and be heard.
“Please speak up. Like put some bass in your voice and let me hear you,” Katie would tell Azzi from the driver’s seat in the car. Whenever Azzi mumbled from the backseats, Katie would do her best to try to read her lips from her reflection in the rearview mirror.
It wasn’t like Azzi wasn’t social. She was. She had plenty of friends and spent hours playing. She just didn’t like attention. When she spoke in front of others, her shoulders slouched and she’d look uncomfortable, almost “awkward,” Jose Fudd, Azzi’s youngest brother, said. “It looked like she didn’t know what to do.”
UConn women's basketball sophomore Azzi Fudd hosted her annual summer camp last weekend in Washington D.C. The camp's proceeds were donated to the Pat Summitt Foundation in honor of Fudd's great-grandmother.
Katie and Tim threw every sport at their daughter, wanting her involved with something — anything. She tried soccer, basketball, flag football, dance, and track.
Azzi started basketball when she was 7 and that stuck. And she was good, if not great.
Sure, she had some natural athleticism thanks to parents who both played the sport professionally, but her work ethic was all her own and noticeable.
“You could see it right away,” Azzi’s high school coach Johnathan Scribner said of first watching Azzi when she was in fifth grade playing in a seventh/eighth-grade All-Star game and earning MVP. “She was right at home.”
Azzi’s goal was always and remains to better herself. She never aimed for accolades. She aims to master her skills.
Each summer Azzi dedicated herself to practicing one particular skill over and over again until she had it right. Her pull-up jumper, her shooting form, her defense. She became a master at routine and practicing something over and over..
UConn women's basketball sophomore Azzi Fudd hosted her annual summer camp last weekend in Washington D.C. The camp's proceeds were donated to the Pat Summitt Foundation in honor of Fudd's great-grandmother.
In eighth grade, she hosted her first summer camp in honor of her great-grandmother. The camp started as a one-day session and usually maxed out at about 30 kids.
Having to stand up in front of the crowd to lead and instruct scared Azzi. She’d get in her head and be too afraid to blow her whistle. She relied on her parents to help and take over.
“She’d be like nervous and panicking and anxious,” Jaidyn Harper, Azzi’s former teammate at St. John’s and one of this year’s camp coaches said. “Because she’s so introverted and like, ‘All these girls look up to me like I have to do good. What should I do?’ ”
Yet her reputation was only just beginning.
Azzi won her first gold medal with Team USA in the summer of 2017 at the FIBA U16 Americas Championship. She won two more golds in 2018, the summer heading into her sophomore year of high school.
She became one of the first girls to attend the NBA’s Steph Curry’s SC30 Select Camp, hosted annually for the nation’s top high school basketball players. She won the camp’s 3-point contest and the video went viral.
It was during that summer when she first got noticed outside of a gym.
UConn women's basketball sophomore Azzi Fudd hosted her annual summer camp last weekend in Washington D.C. The camp's proceeds were donated to the Pat Summitt Foundation in honor of Fudd's great-grandmother.
While on a cruise with Bueckers and her family in Mexico, she was approached by a fan who asked if she was Azzi Fudd, the girl who was just at Steph Curry’s camp.
“I was like, ‘Uh, yes?’ and Paige was like, ‘Oh my god, you’re famous.’ Like hyping me up,” Azzi said, remembering she got bright red in the moment. “Like how did this person know me?”
She’d sign her first autograph later that year when she became the first sophomore to win Gatorade National Player of the Year after averaging 26.3 points, 6.2 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.9 blocks per game.
In the fall of 2020, she committed to UConn, choosing the program over offers from UCLA, Louisville, Oregon, Kentucky, Texas, Notre Dame and Maryland.
The Arlington, Va. native’s freshman year at UConn went anything but according to plan, though.
UConn women's basketball sophomore Azzi Fudd hosted her annual summer camp last weekend in Washington D.C. The camp's proceeds were donated to the Pat Summitt Foundation in honor of Fudd's great-grandmother.
She was the first of 10 Huskies to miss at least two games due to an injury or illness when a stress reaction in her foot forced her off the court four games into the season.
Azzi came back in January, still in pain but the injury was manageable.
The Huskies defeated Stanford in the Final Four and played in the national championship game for the first time since 2016. Yet, Azzi was basically a non-factor in UConn’s first loss in the title game.
She caught a stomach bug the night before and missed morning shootaround. After averaging 30 minutes per game in the final three months of the season, she played just 16 and scored three points.
Despite the up-and-down season, something had changed Azzi when she came back home this spring. She was more mature and independent. She was more aware of what she needed to do and how to get things done.
UConn women's basketball sophomore Azzi Fudd hosted her annual summer camp last weekend in Washington D.C. The camp's proceeds were donated to the Pat Summitt Foundation in honor of Fudd's great-grandmother.
When Katie would suggest a workout plan, Azzi would tell her she already had one in place. One that incorporated rest days for her foot and health.
“We always knew that was coming, but there’s some kids at 12 who are leaders, take the bull by the horns and just get things done, and then there’s other kids that they grow into it and that’s her,” Katie said.
Azzi looked more comfortable with herself, especially when speaking in front of a crowd.
While she started the year speaking quiet and softly in small crowds of reporters, she became more herself as the season went on. She’d relax and drop her shoulders during press conferences with Bueckers or another teammate by her side. When Geno Auriemma made fun of her for stumbling over an answer during a post-game conference, she didn’t overthink the joke and was quick to move past it.
“I’ve grown a lot mentally and I think there’s still a long way for me to go,” Azzi said. “I was in my head way too much, like overthinking my abilities and my capabilities, my role on the team and whatnot.”
As a brand partner with Chipotle, American Eagle, BioSteele and Curry through NIL, she’s learned how to become a face of a campaign when others depend on her.
“I think I learned a lot last season about myself, about the program and I’m really excited for this next year and feeling a lot more comfortable and confident both in myself and my teammates,” she said.
As a warm-up on Saturday, the kids at Azzi’s camp were instructed do to dribbling drills as they walked, jogged and sprinted the basketball up and down the court.
A little girl with blonde hair was struggling to keep pace with the rest of the group. She was barely past halfcourt when the others had finished and reached the other end.
Azzi walked over to the girl and crouched down to her level. She bent her knees and began dribbling her own ball while maintaining eye contact with the girl and smiling. Azzi did the drill at the same pace as the girl until they reached the end of the court.
UConn women's basketball sophomore Azzi Fudd hosted her annual summer camp last weekend in Washington D.C. The camp's proceeds were donated to the Pat Summitt Foundation in honor of Fudd's great-grandmother.
The kids at the camp were in awe of Fudd. They ran up to her for hugs and autographs, telling her that she’s their favorite player and they watch her games at UConn.
This environment used to make Azzi anxious and uncomfortable, but this year — because of her growth through her freshman year — she felt confident and in control.
“She’s not used to being a coach, a leader, and this camp is great for her because it really brings it out of her,” Jose said. “She has to be loud; she has to project her voice. She has to lead these kids in growing into something better.”
A couple kids wore a T-shirt version of her and Bueckers’ SLAM Magazine cover. One girl asked Azzi to sign a shirt she had made with a print of the Husky logo next to a picture of her and Azzi.
They’d asked her what she did to get so good, and she’d tell them to have goals and dreams. She’d tell each one ‘good job’ if they did a drill right on the court or spend time showing them corrections if they were struggling.
“I have like dreaded these camps probably for the first five years and this was the first one that I’ve thoroughly honestly enjoyed and so I think that this is a really good sign for me personally just like how much more comfortable I felt,” Azzi said on the last day of camp.
“I think this one year in college made me a lot more not outgoing but more talkative, even though my coaches and teammates probably wouldn’t say that, but I have grown a lot in that sense. I think it really showed today so I’m really happy about that.”
UConn women's basketball sophomore Azzi Fudd hosted her annual summer camp last weekend in Washington D.C. The camp's proceeds were donated to the Pat Summitt Foundation in honor of Fudd's great-grandmother.
Azzi gets noticed all the time now. Earlier this month, when the family was in Los Angeles, an employee at the rental car company at the airport immediately recognized her. Her parents get recognized when they’re out on the AAU circuit during the summer.
“We’re background people, we like to move in anonymity but that’s over now,” Katie said. “It’s not just anything I would have ever imagined. Like we did not get into this, Azzi did not start playing basketball with this dream. There’s parents we’ve talked to where their plan is for their kid to be the No. 1 player and our plan was let’s throw a bunch of spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.”
Azzi begins her sophomore year this fall.
Her role will be different than it was 12 months ago when she first stepped foot on campus. She can’t fear attention or the spotlight. The team needs her more than ever without Bueckers.
She understands by having a voice both on and off the court she’s able to impact the next generation of players who want to be just like her and grow the sport.
“I want to be able to do more for women’s basketball and like hopefully, like eventually, I can continue and go pro and continue my platform,” Azzi said. “I want to be able to raise awareness and just give back as much as I can and support them.”
UConn women's basketball sophomore Azzi Fudd talks with mom, Katie Fudd, before hosting her annual summer camp in Washington D.C. The camp's proceeds were donated to the Pat Summitt Foundation in honor of Fudd's great-grandmother.
Azzi allowed herself two complaints during her two-day camp.
An hour into setting up Saturday’s morning session, she groaned when Katie asked her to post a video to her Instagram showing the camp’s setup.
“Is that your one complaint?” Tim said. Tim and Katie have to push their daughter to post on social media to grow her brand.
A week after hosting her own camp, Azzi was in Oakland helping host Curry’s camp in front of an even larger crowd.
Azzi didn’t start basketball for this life. She’d much rather spend her days alone at her grandparent’s cabin in Minnesota. Away from all the eyes, social media and pressure. Her safe haven.
But she feels ready to embrace it all now. She knows she has to.
UConn women's basketball sophomore Azzi Fudd hosted her annual summer camp last weekend in Washington D.C. The camp's proceeds were donated to the Pat Summitt Foundation in honor of Fudd's great-grandmother.
Maggie is a general assignment sports reporter for Hearst CT Media who focuses on highlighting the humanity within athletics with every feature. She comes to Connecticut after growing up and working all along the West Coast, including stops at The Seattle Times and The Orange County Register. Outside of writing, she enjoys spontaneous adventures, reading, hiking and visiting her family back home in Portland, Oregon.