Fra Noi Embrace Your Inner Italian
Recently retired after nearly 40 stellar seasons as head coach of the DePaul women’s basketball team, Doug Bruno continue to pitch in as a special assistant to the program.
After 39 seasons of exemplary leadership on and off the court, Doug Bruno has stepped down as the head coach of the DePaul women’s basketball team.
Through his long career, Bruno established himself as one of the most prominent and influential figures in collegiate women’s basketball. He was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022 and the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame in 2017. He also was a nominee for induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2023.
Bruno led DePaul to 25 NCAA Tournament appearances and his teams made the Sweet 16 four times, claiming the Big East title nine times.
If Bruno had it his way, he would be gearing up for his 40th season of leading the Blue Demons, but life had another plan. He suffered a stroke in August 2024 and wasn’t able to return to the sidelines. His recovery took months and it wasn’t until November that he was close to feeling like his old self.
“My assistant coaches are all great and they picked up the torch and went on and coached the team,” Bruno says. “The season was already well along, I was not going to mess with the chemistry they had going. I was not going back on the sidelines: That’s just how life works.”
Top assistant coach Jill Pizzotti served as interim head coach in Bruno’s absence. She will succeed him as head coach next season.
“It’s a great and natural decision by DePaul and I’m thrilled,” Bruno says.
Bruno was first named the head coach of the Blue Demons women’s basketball program in 1976, at 26 years old. After two seasons he left the program to become the head coach of the Chicago Hustle, a women’s basketball team in the now-defunct Women’s Professional Basketball League. When asked how that league compared with the modern WNBA, which got started nearly 20 years later in 1996, Bruno said the main difference is that there are more opportunities for women athletes now.
“Women have always been great athletes and able to compete at a high level, they just needed the opportunity to compete,” Bruno says. “The women’s game now has been accepted, it’s been embraced.”
Bruno says that, in his opinion, coaching professionals wasn’t different from coaching college athletes.
“The beauty of basketball is the togetherness of players, it’s the ultimate team game,” Bruno says. “The best teams are the best sharing teams, they share in everything they do.”
In 1980, Bruno served as an assistant coach for the Loyola men’s basketball team before eventually returning to lead the DePaul women’s basketball team once again in 1988, at 38 years old.
Another way he’s been shaping the lives and careers of basketball players is through the Doug Bruno Girls Basketball Camp, which he started in 1980. He was inspired to start his camp because of the camp launched by legendary DePaul men’s basketball coach Ray Meyer, which Bruno worked at in his youth.
“I just started naturally running a camp myself; it kind of emerged and evolved,” Bruno says. “It’s the competition that makes the camp. Players love to play and learn, and there’s no better learning than playground basketball.”
Bruno sold his camp to United States Sports Camps but he continues to be involved. Some of the coaches who now run the day-to-day operations once were players at the camp.
Bruno will continue on at DePaul as a special assistant to the vice president/director of athletics for women’s basketball. He sees his new role as an opportunity to confer the lessons he’s learned about coaching to other coaches in the DePaul athletics family.
Bruno says he doesn’t think about what his legacy will be.
“I just hope people know that I gave it my all every day as a player and a coach and that we were good to our players and helped them grow as people and athletes,” Bruno says.
The article above appears in the June 2025 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture. To subscribe, click here.
