Sue Semrau was fed up. Her team was lethargic and going through the motions at practice during the 2017-18 season. With a road game on the horizon, she’d seen enough.
“If y’all don’t do it, I’ll show you how it’s done,” Semrau told the Florida State women’s basketball players gathered in the Basketball Training Center. She transitioned from coach to player and jumped into the drill.
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Chatrice White, a 6-foot-3 center, barreled into the paint on a drive to the basket. Semrau, of average stature and in her mid-50s, jumped in front of White, took the charge and splayed out onto the court.
“She literally took it,” senior guard Nausia Woolfolk said last week while overlooking the same court in the BTC. “She ate it. She was like, ‘I’m perfectly fine.’”
When the team arrived at the hotel for the next game, Semrau was nowhere to be found. The coaching staff told the players that she wouldn’t be at She’d miss shootaround, as well. They admitted they had to take her to the doctor.
“She came to the game and she couldn’t even sit down,” Woolfolk laughed. “She just stood in one spot the whole game. I think that was the funniest shit I’ve ever seen, to be honest.”
Semrau’s passion for the game and her players was on full display that day. It’s the driving trait behind her legacy of success at Florida State — a 466-252 record over 23 seasons as the university’s longest-tenured and winningest coach.
“As I’ve been here for 20 years, it’s the amount of things that are non-basketball and non-court related and how to grow a program,” Semrau said from her office in the BTC earlier this month. “That isn’t just about spending time watching film and getting your players better. (That’s) all really still important, but now on top of that, you’ve got a lot of administrative things. I don’t want to stay the same. I want us to grow. I want us to be better. It’s trying to be a visionary, but then be a CEO at the same time.”
Semrau has immersed herself in the profession. She’s obsessed with it and never satisfied. Her teams have made 14 NCAA Tournament appearances in the past 15 seasons, and she wants more.
“I don’t really have a life,” Semrau said. “And I never got married. Really, I blame basketball for that. I think that it consumed me.”
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The product of her sacrifice has been the transformation of Florida State from ACC bottom-dweller into one of the premier programs in the country. And she’s nowhere near finished.
Semrau, 57, grew up in Seattle. When she first started playing basketball for her junior high school team in the mid-1970s, her inspiration was Slick Watts, starting point guard for the Seattle SuperSonics. He ran a local camp she attended.
“I followed him and really just loved the way he played,” Semrau said. “I went to camps and I really just wanted to learn how to be the best I could be. I was limited, obviously, with my size.”
Semrau played two years of college ball at Puget Sound and two more at UC-San Diego. In graduate school, she decided to give coaching a try, starting out at a local high school before taking an assistant position at Division III Occidental College in Los Angeles.
Semrau’s biggest challenge initially was juggling all of the different responsibilities at the college level. There wasn’t enough time to do everything she wanted to do between recruiting, scouting, developing and building relationships.
As she began to find a better balance, she was promoted to head coach at Occidental in 1987. In her spare time, Semrau volunteered to help at the Fellowship of Christian Athletes women’s basketball camps. Before one camp, Northern Illinois coach Jane Albright called Semrau to ask which station she wanted to run.
“She pretty much just said, ‘Anything you need me to do,’” Albright said over the phone earlier this month. “I think that personifies who she is.”
Semrau and Albright hit it off at the camp. They began a friendship sustained through long-distance phone calls, talking often early in the morning and late at night because that’s when rates were the cheapest.
About a year after they met, Albright invited Semrau to a friend’s beach house in South Carolina. Among the group was legendary North Carolina State coach Kay Yow, former NC State administrator Nora Lynn Finch, former South Carolina coach Nancy Wilson and a few others.
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Their bond deepened, and when Albright had an opening on her staff at Northern Illinois in 1991, she offered it to Semrau. What captured Albright more than Semrau’s work ethic and willingness to learn were her people skills.
“I would say she’s one of those people that spreads sunshine wherever she goes,” Albright said. “Those kinds of people, there aren’t enough of them. Particularly when you have a chance to get one on your staff, it was a no-brainer for me.”
Semrau in Tully Gymnasium during her first season at FSU, 1997-98. (Courtesy of Florida State)At Northern Illinois, Semrau studied the game and sharpened her organizational skills. She picked up on the habits of coaches she admired, like Albright, Yow and legendary UCLA coach John Wooden.
During a stretch of three straight NCAA Tournament runs from 1992-94, Washington coach Chris Gobrecht offered Semrau a job as her top assistant coach. It presented Semrau with a chance to return to her home state and move up to a Power 5 school, but she turned Gobrecht down. She wanted to stay and finish what she started at NIU.
Gerald O’Dell, the Northern Illinois athletic director at the time, called Semrau into his office. Did she not have confidence? Why would she turn down more money and the chance to move up the ladder?
“I remember I was so mad at him because I had just been thinking we had this one-in-a-million person who is loyal and going to do what she said and not jump for money and those things, and he thinks there’s something wrong with her,” Albright said. “That says a lot about who she is, too, that she does what she says she’s going to do. She’s loyal. She’s not a spin doctor.
“I think that’s why her kids really go through walls for her and really love her, because she’s fair and she’s honest and has all the characteristics that you want in a person that you don’t often see.”
Not long after, Albright left NIU for the job at Wisconsin. Semrau went with her, and other schools continued to pursue her services. She interviewed for a few head coaching jobs, but none of them felt like the right fit.
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Then, in 1997, Semrau received a call from Florida State asking her to interview in Atlanta. Shortly after that meeting, she flew to Tallahassee for a follow-up.
“They came after me,” Semrau said. “It really wasn’t something I wanted to do. I knew the coach that left. She’s a really good coach and a good friend and she left for a reason.”
That coach was Gobrecht, who’d previously offered Semrau the job at Washington. The Seminoles had gone 5-22 during Gobrecht’s lone season in 1996. The losing, combined with the small town of Tallahassee, limited recruiting base and general lack of support for basketball, didn’t make it the most attractive opportunity. Semrau took it anyway.
That time, Albright implored Semrau to accept the job.
“She’s by far the best assistant I ever had in my 40 years of coaching,” Albright said. “I never had another like Sue. She just has a very unique skill set. Usually, you have your worker bees and then you have your people that have the softer skills, but Sue has all of it. She’s just the total package.”
Semrau and her team on Selection Sunday in 2001. (Courtesy of Florida State)Florida State wasn’t anywhere close to a top program when Semrau took it over. While the men played their home games in the Tucker Civic Center, the women still played in the 2,500-seat Tully Gymnasium. They’d also lost 18 straight ACC games and hadn’t reached double-digit wins in four years.
“It was scary for me,” Semrau said. “I knew it was going to be a big rebuild. And with my first Division I head coaching job, I had to be a little naive. Or have a lot of faith. One of the two.”
Semrau dedicated herself to a 24/7 mentality and made relationship-building her top priority. While recruiting in July 1997, she stopped in at players’ homes for visits. One of those players was Brooke Wyckoff, who signed with the Noles under the previous coaching staff and was at home in Cincinnati that summer.
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“It really was an instant connection,” said Wyckoff, now the associate head coach under Semrau. “She wanted to know about what was going on in my life. My family. Everything. And then basketball was at the end of that.”
Despite Semrau’s early grassroots efforts, the results were rough. The Seminoles went 9-18 in her first season, 7-20 in her second and 12-17 in her third. They went just 11-37 in conference and didn’t look all that different from what the fan base had become accustomed to seeing.
The signs of progress came slowly. FSU won its first ACC game under Semrau in January 1998, when Wyckoff hit a free throw to close out the 64-63 home win over Wake Forest.
“Nobody knew where this was going to go,” Wyckoff said. “That’s what I remember, is just her continual belief and her ability to inspire belief and cast a vision when nothing was going right.”
The Noles finally turned the corner during the 2000-01 season, winning 19 games. They had gathered as a team in the football locker room to watch the NCAA Tournament selection show when they learned they’d made it for the first time in a decade. They won their first-round game before bowing out in the Round of 32.
The team took a step back after losing Wyckoff and Levys Torres to the WNBA, making the WNIT the next two seasons. Then tragedy struck before the 2004 season when rising sophomore Ronalda Pierce died suddenly of Marfan syndrome. The death shocked the program, but didn’t break them.
“I’ve never been through anything like that,” Semrau said. “That ‘04-’05 team was really special as a result. They just pulled together and did things that nobody thought they could do.”
FSU went 24-8 and made the NCAA Tournament. That season set the foundation for the program’s sustained success.
“I remember one of the associate ADs here early in my career saying, ‘It’s a lot easier to build it than to sustain it,’” Semrau said. “And at the time I was a little salty. I was like, ‘Well, it’s really hard right now.’
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“But I think that success breeds success. People want to be a part of it.”
Semrau celebrates with her team after the program advanced to its first Sweet 16 in 2007. (Courtesy of Florida State)Largely due to the success of the football program, the Noles’ brand has grown exponentially since Semrau took over. People recognize the school name and logo, which allowed Semrau and her staff to expand from recruiting regionally to internationally.
On the team are players from 10 different states and three different countries. None hail from Florida.
Redshirt senior forward Kiah Gillespie connected with Semrau when she decided to transfer from Maryland in 2017. She was aware of FSU despite not knowing much about Semrau personally.
“When I took my visit here, Coach Sue was the exact same person that she was when I talked on the phone,” Gillespie said. “I tell a lot of people: She lets me call her ‘Auntie.’ That’s a different type of level of trust and a different kind of relationship that we share on that I don’t think a lot of players get to experience with their head coaches.”
All coaches say they care about more than just athletics, but Semrau lives it. She asks all of her players about their personal lives. She extends an open invitation for them to text or call her whenever they need her.
That relationship goes beyond their time at Florida State as well. Wyckoff is a prime example. The two remained in touch throughout Wyckoff’s WNBA career, from 2001-09, with Semrau even traveling to her games.
“She not only handles the kids here, she knows what’s going on with all her alumni. I’m like, ‘How do you do this?’” Wyckoff said. “That’s what she did with me. She would come to my games. She came overseas a couple times to see me play. She was a mentor to me while I was here and then afterwards. I did not want to lose that mentorship and that relationship.”
Wyckoff retired from the WNBA due to injury in 2009 and volunteered as an assistant coach at Lakota East High in Cincinnati. After two years there, Semrau offered her a role on her staff as an assistant coach.
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Former forward Gabby Bevillard is another player who’s stayed close with Semrau. Before her freshman season in 2014, Bevillard had a season-ending knee injury in practice. It was her fourth ACL tear, and she decided to retire before the 2014-15 season. She came out of retirement the following February to honor her mother, Maureen, who died from cancer a month earlier and remained involved with the team, sitting on the bench during games. Once she graduated in 2017, Semrau helped Bevillard land a job as a global marketing product specialist at Nike.
Semrau’s players recognize that commitment from her.
“Coach Sue was just like, ‘Whatever you do here, just lay it all on the table and I’m going to lay as much as I can for you,’” Woolfolk said. “With us, she asks us what we want to do all the time. I want to be an orthodontist. She’d take me to see dentists and people that I can shadow. It shows that she really does care more about life instead of just basketball.”
Semrau and Morgan Jones talk on the sidelines during a game this season. (Courtesy of Florida State)Twenty-three years and a laundry list of accolades later, Semrau isn’t content. She’s solidified herself as a Noles legend, yet she wants more — namely a Final Four appearance and national championship.
She’d also like to see more fan support at her team’s games. Florida State averaged 2,982 fans at women’s home games during the 2018-19 season, which ranked 43rd in the country. In comparison, the men’s program averaged 9,127 fans at the Tucker Center, which seats 12,100.
“The changes culturally have to occur,” Semrau said of the disparity. “Men’s sports were put out there really early. There weren’t any women’s sports. That’s the thing that America decided was going to be out there. You can’t just put another thing out there because that’s the thing. Now we’ve got to find ways to be different. It’s not just men’s and women’s basketball, it’s different personalities. It’s like Florida State and Florida — they’re not the same. They’re both universities, but they’re not the same.”
There’s not much Semrau can do about it but continue to win. The Seminoles did a lot of that to start this season, jumping out to a 13-0 record and a No. 8 national ranking. The players accredited the success to their tight bond off the court, which Semrau fostered. She often takes the players out to have fun together and the assistants have opened up their families to the team.
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That chemistry also means they’re unafraid to challenge one another.
“When we have a tough practice, I’ve come up to her and I’ll just be like, ‘Dang, Coach, you’re killing us today,’” Gillespie said. “And she’ll be like, ‘You can handle it. You got it.’ We can have a second to laugh and then we just get right back into business mode. That’s the thing I appreciate about her most.”
Since that 13-0 start, the Seminoles have gone 4-3, punctuated by losses to unranked Syracuse and Georgia Tech. They’re still No. 14 in the country and third in the ACC, but much work remains.
“We, as players, kind of got that sense of complacency,” Gillespie said. “We’ve tasted a little, tiny bit of success. We kind of forgot what the bigger goal was. That’s been our main idea and our main focus coming in these last couple of practices is just getting back to what we used to do and staying focused and getting back to that championship mentality.”
One obstacle the Seminoles have to overcome this season is an unbalanced roster. After seniors Gillespie, Woolfolk and Nicki Ekhomu, there are 10 underclassmen. Juniors Savannah Wilkinson and Sayawni Lassiter are injured, and Bianca Jackson is sitting out the year to gain her residency.
The seniors have taken on the load of guiding the underclassmen. They help instruct in practice and film sessions and pass on messages from the coaching staff. While Woolfolk leads through her actions, Gillespie is more liable to let someone hear it.
“At some point, we can’t keep saying, ‘Oh, we’re so young,’” Gillespie said. “For me, everything is coming into perspective that this is the last time that I will play some of these teams in the regular season — or ever again — at this point. It’s just getting them to understand that. We can’t waste days.
“We can’t lose games anymore.”
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For the Seminoles to accomplish their goal of winning the ACC Championship, they’re going to have to get past No. 5 Louisville (19-1) and No. 8 NC State (18-1). The thought of them even being in the situation at the beginning of Semrau’s tenure would’ve been unfathomable.
“I still sometimes — it sounds cliche — but I’m just like, ‘Wow, is this real? How did this all happen? How did we get here? How did I get here?’” Wyckoff said. “In this business of sports, longevity and building something over a long period of time doesn’t happen as often. … Just having been able to witness all the work, blood, sweat, tears and just craziness that’s gone into it. I’m just so glad to be a part of it all and still learn from it to this day.”
Semrau’s inner competitor won’t allow her to reflect on it all until her career is over. She’s made it to the Elite Eight three times, but has never cracked the Final Four. Despite the recent lapse, she believes the players have it in them to break through.
“You have to have a vision,” Semrau said. “And our vision is that we would build a national championship program. We want to do it in order to empower the lives of the players that we have here, empower the lives of the young children that are in the community and empower the lives of people that follow us, but we want to do it through excellence.”
(Photo: David Allio / Icon Sportswire via Associated Press)
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