Senior guard Charisma Osborne walks past photos of UCLA greats each time she is in Pauley Pavilion. They remind her of the program standard, which in recent years has included four straight trips to the Sweet 16, one Elite 8 appearance, a WNIT championship, and a slew of individual program records set.
At an athletic juggernaut like UCLA, legacy is usually a fairly straightforward thing. But Osborne’s imprint on Westwood, like the person that she is, is far more complicated than statistics and all-time marks.
The collegiate path of the two-time state high school basketball champion and top-10 recruit has been a complex weave of disruption, pivoting on-court duties, injury, and heaping lessons in life. And whether she chooses to declare for the WNBA draft this spring or stay another year, she will leave a legacy on the Bruin program like no other before her.
“Banners hang in gyms and rings collect dust, but who you become and who you impact are with you forever,” coach Cori Close said. “To watch Charisma impact the people around her, and then to see her becoming proud of who she’s becoming through all of her work…….I’m surprised, but only because I didn’t know what this was going to look like for her. And I’m thrilled…
