For the past several years while en route to four straight Final Fours, three national title contests, a 66-game regular-season winning streak, unbeaten Big East and ACC titles, etc., Notre Dame women's head coach Muffet McGraw has been regularly queried whether her latest juggernaut is the best in her 28 seasons.

The response has been the same: "That remains to be seen."

For McGraw, The Gold Standard remains the 2001 edition that captured the program's lone national title, led by 6-5 center and National Player of the Year Ruth Riley. That 34-2 campaign was culminated by first defeating nemesis UConn in the NCAA Final Four, and then Riley converting two free throws with 5.8 seconds left in a 68-66 victory over Purdue in the final. She finished the contest with 28 points, 13 rebounds and seven blocked shots.

"It is not lost on me that my collegiate career had a perfect ending," said the now 35-year-old Riley, who completed her first semester in Notre Dame's Executive MBA program this fall in the top-ranked Mendoza School of Business. "Not many athletes win a championship, and even fewer get to finish their collegiate careers by winning one."

Eventually during a 13-year WNBA career that came to a close last spring, Riley also became the first person to win MVP awards in the NCAA Tournament and WNBA Championship (with the Detroit Shock in 2003, where she also won a second title in 2006). In 2004, she added basketball's version of the Triple Crown as a member of the Team USA Basketball squad that won the gold medal in Athens during the Summer Olympics.

Yet when it comes to achievement in life, basketball might not even capture a bronze medal in Riley's world.

Growing up in rural Peru, Ind., Riley was raised in a single-parent home by mother Sharon Riley with sister Rachel and brother Jake, and received no child support from the father.

Sharon's daily role was finding a way to keep food on the table while doing everything from working as a waitress or in factories, to doing hairdressing from her own home. At the time, Ruth was too young to understand what poverty meant until the children qualified for a free and reduced lunch program.

"That is when I started to realize that we were different from everyone else," she said.

Freshman year in high school opened other wounds when she was easily the tallest girl in school and became somewhat withdrawn because she was perceived as shy and one from the poor side of the tracks.

"Once I was a teenager, I realized I wasn't wearing what everyone else was wearing and I definitely was not driving what everyone else was driving," Riley said. "In high school, I started to see more clearly the struggle my mom was going though to provide for us. I noticed that people only saw me as an athlete and really were clueless of my life's story.

"That made me more aware that as I engage with other people, I needed to put all assumptions aside and try to truly meet them on a level of humanity."

The gangly 6-5 girl developed into an elite athlete, winning four letters apiece in basketball, volleyball - she was named all state in both - and in the discus for track and field. Sharon also implemented strict guidelines on limited television use - "we got only four stations anyway," Riley deadpanned - and put a premium on constantly reading books to facilitate their knowledge.

"We were told at a young age that we were smart, and we were expected to bring home grades accordingly," Riley said. "Besides the intellectual benefit of reading more, I am grateful for the creativity and resourcefulness that I developed as a child. My brother, sister and I were always active, and our imaginations became our guide instead of a TV."

Although she appreciates the convenience of today's technology, she still sees some drawback.

"I do believe it comes at a cost of increased obesity rates in our youth," she said. "My nephew knows when I visit that I am happy to play any game he wants - as long as it is not electronic and his latest feat in Minecraft is not going to be our conversation topic."

In addition to her on-court exploits, Riley was a Hall of Fame academician, a regular on the Dean's List while earning bachelor's degrees in psychology and sociology. She also viewed her greatest victories as the ability to use her basketball skills as a platform with the school's LifeSkills Office (now Student Welfare and Development).

"I would visit local schools and was amazed at the reaction of the kids," Riley said. "… I realized that my opportunity to impact lives would not just be to a large group of kids, it also existed on a very personal level as well.

"The confidence I gained on the court and the spotlight that accompanied that success forced me to take ownership of my voice."

During her time in the WNBA, Riley became an even greater champion in various humanitarian efforts.

In 2006, Riley joined the United Nations Foundation's "Nothing But Nets" campaign as a spokesperson to fight malaria, including regular observation trips across Africa to create awareness about the deadly disease and aid funding for such low-cost items as bed nets, while inspiring other athletes to join the cause.

She also is heavily involved in the "No Kid Hungry" campaign developed by Share Our Strengths, a nonprofit organization committed to ending childhood hunger in America, from teaching families how to cook healthy meals on a budget, to helping build public-private partnerships to end hunger on a national and state level.

As an ambassador for the NBA/WNBA Cares, Riley travels around the world - recently with former NBA star Dikembe Mutumbo - to showcase basketball as a positive outlet across communities, while on a local level she serves in hospitals and schools to create positive impact.

In addition to the Executive MBA program, serving as a color commentator with play-by-play man Bob Nagle for Notre Dame women's basketball and moonlighting as a motivational speaker, she is tentatively scheduled this year to make a trip to Panama, a few trips back to Africa and probably head to South America, too.

This past Nov. 28, Riley was honored in Leipzig, Germany, by the Junior Chamber International (JCI) as the Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World recipient in the category of humanitarian and/or voluntary leadership.

She was the first American to receive the global award since 2008.

"My commitment to helping others comes from a life of gratitude that was initiated by my faith," Riley said. "I was raised to be grateful for what God has given me. Because we didn't always have a lot of money growing up, I was also grateful to those who helped my family and I, either financially or with the time they invested in me.

"I don't think it was the poverty that made me empathetic, as much as it was my realization that whether you have money or not, there is a deeper story behind each of us."

Even on the Notre Dame campus, she works as a facilitator for the Rosenthal Leadership Academy for the Irish student-athletes and with the Notre Dame Initiative for Global Development offices to provide international service and learning opportunities to the student-athletes.

"I am amazed at the journey God has me on, the places I have traveled to and the organizations I have had the pleasure to work with," Riley said.

She still remains passionate about McGraw's program.

"I have no doubt that 2001 will not be the only banner to hang from our rafters," Riley said.

It's the banner life led thereafter that becomes even more significant.