For Kara Wolters, A Connecticut Gold Key Award Really Hits Home

STORRS, CT — University of Connecticut basketball great Kara Wolters is a NCAA champion, an Olympic Champion and a WNBA Champion.

She a women's hoop hall of famer.

She's now a state hall of famer.

Wolters, in her ever-present light-hearted style, at first joked that "it was about time," she was receiving a Connecticut Sports Media Alliance Gold Key Award.

"I mean Rebecca won it (eye roll), Jen won it (hands waving) from the 1995 team, so why not me ... " Wolters quipped.

But then Wolters thought about it and the wait actually made the award feel better.

She's really a resident now.

"It makes sense," she said. "I stayed here (she resides in Somers), this is my home. Connecticut is a great place to be. I live here. I coach here. I run camps here. Everyone knows me and is nice to me."

Wolters said she has well-wishers come up to her for high fives when she's pumping gas. She's also a popular figure as the heart and soul of the annual Somers Scarecrow Festival.

"Oh she likes it," quipped her daughter Sydney, who played for Roger Williams University and seems to have inherited mom's sense of humor.

"It's really an honor," Wolters said of the Gold Key. "Because his one comes from the state."

The award was presented on May 16 at the annual CSMA annual Gold Key Dinner at the Aquaturf in Southington. It had been rescheduled from the fall.