{"id":793152,"date":"2026-05-13T09:53:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T09:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/793152\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T09:53:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T09:53:17","slug":"ucla-rewards-coach-cori-close-with-contract-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/793152\/","title":{"rendered":"UCLA rewards coach Cori Close with contract extension"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

UCLA women\u2019s basketball coach Cori Close<\/a> isn\u2019t going anywhere.<\/p>\n

UCLA<\/a> announced on Tuesday that Close signed a contract extension through the 2029-30 season after she led the Bruins to their first NCAA national championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am so grateful to Chancellor [Julio] Frenk and [athletic director] Martin Jarmond for the opportunity to continue teaching and mentoring the young women who choose UCLA,\u201d Close said in a news release. \u201cI love being here in Westwood, and I am so excited for what the future holds. I hope we can continue to make our Bruin faithful proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Close has been UCLA\u2019s head coach since 2011 and went 35-8-144 during that span. The Bruins have been to 10 NCAA tournaments and went to the Final Four the past two seasons, breaking through with a national title win over South Carolina<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Close was also named the Big Ten coach of the year during this past season.<\/p>\n

A record six players from the national championship squad<\/a> \u2014 Lauren Betts<\/a>, Gabriela Jaquez<\/a>, Kiki Rice<\/a>, Gianna Kneepkens<\/a>, Angela Dugalic<\/a> and Charlisse Leger-Walker<\/a> \u2014 were WNBA draft picks and all are on WNBA rosters at the start of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are extremely proud of what Cori has accomplished in leading our young women,\u201d UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond said in a statement. \u201cWinning a national championship is a tremendous achievement, but what truly stands out with Cori is the character, leadership and daily commitment she and her staff bring to help develop her players into the best versions of themselves. We are very fortunate to have Cori leading this program, and we couldn\u2019t be more excited about the future of this team.\u201d<\/p>\n

The California Post reported<\/a> that Close\u2019s contract will earn her around $2 million per season, making her one of the 10 highest-paid coaches in the women\u2019s game. The Post also reported that Close earned $1.2 million last season before incentives and she triggered all 11 performance bonuses for an additional $180,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UCLA women\u2019s basketball coach Cori Close isn\u2019t going anywhere. UCLA announced on Tuesday that Close signed a contract…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":793153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[32072,1582,276,244878,27226,323725,42421,289837,19835,93430,2961,23245,3457,224,5337,323724,9323,5950,2501,18386],"class_list":{"0":"post-793152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-bruins","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-california-post","12":"tag-close","13":"tag-coach-cori-close","14":"tag-contract-extension","15":"tag-cori","16":"tag-future","17":"tag-kiki-rice","18":"tag-la","19":"tag-lauren-betts","20":"tag-leadership","21":"tag-los-angeles","22":"tag-losangeles","23":"tag-national-championship-squad","24":"tag-player","25":"tag-season","26":"tag-ucla","27":"tag-young-woman"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116566662247883201","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}