Shauna Green was set for a pro career in Europe before injury struck. Then she got into coaching and rose to become the next women's basketball coach at Illinois.
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PEORIA, Illinois — A professional contract had been signed, and it looked like Shauna Green was set for a pro career in Europe.
She had graduated from Canisius as the program’s all-time leading scorer and was getting ready to play in Luxembourg, until a foot injury threw a wrench in those plans for a professional career.
“I couldn’t run,” Green said at an Illini Tailgate event in Peoria. “I just couldn’t. I had to get my agent to get me out of the contract.”
That sent her down a coaching path, starting as an assistant at Division III Loras College that July. Since then she’s had a rise through the coaching ranks over 20 years to become the woman tasked with turning around a struggling Illinois women’s basketball program.
That coaching career that came out of bad luck has turned into her becoming one of the up-and-coming coaches in the country.