On Monday, Lindsay Whalen announced her retirement, and on Sunday she will play her final regular-season game at Target Center. With the playoffs days away and Whalen’s new career as Gophers head coach looming, she agreed to share memories of her career. Here are 13 thoughts from No. 13, a few thank-yous and an IOU:

By Lindsay Whalen : Special to the Star Tribune

1. First thank you goes to Coach T [Mike Thibault] for drafting me. I knew he was going to; he came to watch me in the Bahamas over Thanksgiving break in my senior year. Now, he got to go to the Bahamas. But he still was watching me play instead of being at home with his family. So I figured he was serious.

I did want to stay home at the time after the run to the Final Four, but going to Connecticut was the best thing for me. I grew as a person. He taught me how to be a pro. I always think back to one conversation we had that helped take my game to another level. It was right after my third season in the league and we had lost to the Detroit Shock in the WNBA semifinals, the first time we hadn’t made the Finals in my time there. For me, personally, it was hard. I was coming off reconstructive ankle surgery that season. As any athlete knows, that first year playing after a major surgery is very difficult.

After that season he challenged me to get in the best shape of my life. He wanted me to get leaner, faster, stronger. He knew I was entering the prime of my career and he wanted to challenge me. As an athlete you think you’re already doing everything you can to be a great player.

It wasn’t the easiest conversation, but I am forever grateful. Because once I got myself in that condition, to play at that level, I was runner-up for the WNBA MVP and first-team All-WNBA in 2008. He saw something in me I did not see in myself. And that’s the definition of a great coach and mentor. Thank you, Coach T!

2. Thank you to Coach [Cheryl] Reeve. The 2010 season was my first back in Minnesota. It was also the first season there for Coach and Becky [Rebekkah Brunson]. We went through so many close losses that year. But I think we would all point back to that season as something we had to go through to have the success we had later.

We had one meeting in particular that I will never forget, in Coach’s office, after the All-Star Game in 2010. This conversation would change my career and, to be honest, my life. I had made it to a Final Four in college and two WNBA Finals but did not win a championship. I had never, as a player, been able to break that threshold. I always felt so much pride in being an underdog, and underrated. Those feelings carried me and my teams a long way, but never to the top. So, it went something like this: She asked me what I averaged during the 2008 season when I was first-team All-WNBA. And then she asked me to average that stat line in practice. Allen Iverson would have been beside himself. Practice? We’re talking about practice. Yes, in practice. So, my goal was to average 15 points, six assists and five rebounds in practice. This was when I truly started to realize as a player that how you practice is how you play. Those habits you create every day in practice determine how you perform. I’d always practiced hard. But now it was so much more focused.

Every day I had a mission, a goal. I was already driven, but now it had to go to another level for our team to be successful. My shooting percentages began to rise, my scoring, assists and rebounds came along with it. That fall I made my first USA Basketball national team and we won a gold medal at the 2010 World Championships. Four WNBA championships and four gold medals later I guess you could say I am thankful for that and the many other conversations me and Coach Reeve have had over the years. She turned me into a champion. I was always an underdog and loved that role. But being a champion is a lot more fun! Thank you, Coach!

To read Lindsay’s 11 remaining thank yous, and her special IOU, go to StarTribune.com.