Wisconsin's Carter Booth focuses on volleyball tour while her dad eyes NBA championship
MADISON – The way Carter Booth sees it, there is no way the Denver Nuggets don’t get the job done.
“I don’t see a scenario where they don’t win, not because they’re this much more skilled than another team or anything like that but because of the way that when the going gets tough and it comes down to it, they dig in and they grind together as a group and as a team,” she said. “I think that can beat anything.”
The sophomore on the Wisconsin volleyball team speaks as a Coloradan and proud Nuggets fan. She also speaks from the heart.
Her father, Calvin Booth, is the Nuggets general manager. This is his third season in that role. He spent the three previous seasons as assistant general manager.
During those six years, Denver has gone from missing the playoffs to the brink of its first NBA championship. Denver finished the regular season with the best record in the Western Conference and comes into the Finals fresh off a sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers.
This could be the crowning moment of her father career, but Booth will miss most if not all of it.
Game 1 of the Nuggets-Miami Heat series tips off at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, and if the Finals go seven games they will end June 18. Booth, meanwhile, will go through the Badgers' final practice at the UW Field House and then leave with the team for an international tour that will last from Friday to June 14 and take the team to Turkey, Slovenia, Italy and Switzerland.
Those parts of the world are six or seven hours ahead of Central time, which means the 7:30 p.m. tip off time for each of the Finals games will be at 12:30 or 1:30 in the morning for Booth, depending on the team’s location.
“I’ll definitely be checking in with my mom via text and my dad obviously, so I’ll be getting updates from them if I’m not able to watch it live,” Booth said. “But I’m super-excited for my dad and the team because it’s a great team, great guys that work together and I think they deserve it.”
Carter Booth quickly gave up basketball, found her path in volleyball
Carter Booth played basketball briefly in elementary school before turning her attention to volleyball. She blossomed into a two-time Under Armour All-American as a high school player and a first-team all-Big Ten selection as a freshman at Minnesota last season.
"I’m a very strong-willed person," Booth said. "I got that from both of my parents and from a very young age I knew I wanted to create my own story. I didn’t want to be a basketball player following in my basketball player dad’s footsteps, but I wanted to find my own path so I chose volleyball very quickly."
While Booth didn't follow her father's lead in the sport she plays, she has taken his approach as well as his jersey number. Calvin Booth wore No. 52 throughout his 10-year NBA career when he played for eight teams.
“That mentality of stay in it and fight for what you want and what you deserve is something he passed on to me,” she said. “I guess coming from a background of having to fight for every single thing he got, that mentality of grinding at it day after day is something that he instilled in me.”
Tour of Turkey, Slovenia, Italy and Switzerland will further ingrain Booth into Badgers program
Since transferring to Wisconsin in January, Booth has used that approach to make a quick transition to the Badgers. Based on what she showed during spring practice, she will provide a major impact to a team that is expected to be one of the best in the nation.
That said, spring workouts were tailored to individual development. The foreign tour and the work the team is putting in heading into the trip is focused more on team concepts.
For Booth, as well as fellow newcomer, Temi Thomas-Ailara, this trip presents a great opportunity to get a jump start on the season.
“It’s all about the system and how we work together as a machine and how well the pieces move together in a way that is compatible and smooth,” Booth said. “We’re tweaking it and doing some fine-tuning, but I’m excited for the fall to see how we work together.”
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin's Carter Booth will focus on volleyball tour, eye NBA Finals
