The new issue of ESPN The Magazine, out tomorrow, features Candace Parker, the amazing mom-to-be, WNBA Star, Olympic Gold Medalist, and NCAA Champion.
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Swoopes 2009 Contract was Waived
Coach Brian Agler has announced that Sheryl Swoopes 2009 contract was waived this weekend, just a day before it would have been guaranteed by the team. Coach Agler says the release of Swoopes was due to salary caps and the need to focus on building depth in the team.
“It was a very tough decision to release Sheryl,” Agler said in a statement provided by the team Tuesday. “Our free agency priorities, right now, are to secure depth both at the post and point guard positions.”
Might Be Time to Focus On Something New For Swoopes
The three-time WNBA MVP and three-time Olympic gold medalist might now pursue something she’s talked about since September — coaching and being a full-time mother.
“I’ve talked to a few people about coaching,” Swoopes said then. “I have a son who is in school here. It is time for me to be a full-time mom.”
Link to more information: Seattle Storm waives Sheryl Swoopes
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Several WNBA Stars Up For Free Agency
There are a several top names on the free agency list this coming season and if any of these players choose to go elsewhere, it will change the makeup of the WNBA.
Lauren Jackson - W fans are all a buzz with this potential move. Jackson easily fits into the world’s best female basketball player and to scorer her for your roster is on just about every team’s to-do list. It’s crazy to think she could play for any other team than Seattle, kind of like watching Sheryl Swoopes in the Storm’s green jersey rather than the Houston red. Wherever Jackson decides to go, she will make an impact.
Penny Taylor - Taylor sat out 2008 season to train with her Australian Opals for the Olympics. Plus she is scheduled for ankle surgery as soon as her commitments are met in Russia. Surgery could mean a sidelined Taylor for several months at the beginning of the 2009 season. But in 2007 she was a key factor in the Phoenix Mercury WNBA championship and Phoenix seems to be a perfect fit for Taylor.
Tina Thompson - After the collapse of the Houston Comets, rumor of Thompson’s retirement were rampant. One of the finest players in the W, Thompson has played her entire WNBA career for Houston, so it’s understandable that she might decide to hang it up after all. It would be sad to see her go on top of the failure of the Comets.
The WNBA has covered 15 of the top free agents. You can read more at WNBA.com
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photo by:rks-seattle
AP Selected Candace Parker Female Athlete of the Year
What a banner year for the WNBA rookie and what a way to cap if off by winning the AP Female Athlete of the Year. This fantastic year began with Parker leading the Tennessee Vols women’s basketball team to a second straight national championship. She was then the over all first round pick by the Los Angeles Sparks in the WNBA draft, won WNBA Rookie of the Year as well as the league’s MVP award. She was also a member of the Women’s National Basketball team who won the Olympic gold in Beijing.
Winning 36 votes from The Associated Press, Candace Parker has been selected as Female Athlete of the Year, just edging out golfer Lorena Ochoa, who has won it the last 2 years.
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The starting five (clockwise from Obama, center): Barack Obama, President; Susan Rice, U.N. ambassador; Arne Duncan, education secretary; James Jones, national security adviser; Eric Holder; attorney general. (Doug Griswold / Mercury News illustration)
President-elect Obama, our nation’s First Hoopster
What better way to say that basketball is the best team sport ever than having the President of America a baller himself.
As reported in the Mercury News, Obama has appointed a basketball starting five into his cabinet. Beginning with Arne Duncan, a former pro baller, turned Chicago schools chief is now the appointee for Education Secretary. James Jones, who will hit the boards, has been appointed to be the next national security adviser. Eric Holder, a hoopster from New York, as attorney general-designate and the starting point guard, Susan Rice, who has been selected for U.N. Ambassador. And finally, Barack Obama, a 6-1 lefty with a killer double-clutch jump shot.
Hoops Shaped Obama from an early age
What did basketball mean to Barack Obama, as a teenager in Hawaii? He described the experience in his 1995 book “Dreams From My Father”:
“I could play basketball, with a consuming passion that would always exceed my limited ability. . . . On the basketball court I could find a community of sorts, with an inner life all its own. It was there that I would make my closest white friends, on turf where blackness couldn”t be a disadvantage.”
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