It's been a long process, but with the backing of the NBA, the WNBA is here to stay.

Before the WNBA, almost all female athletes either hung up their shoes after college, or packed their bags to head to other countries to continue playing. For many years, this was the only way to keep playing basketball. For a number of years, the foreign teams provided many opportunities for American women to continue their professional basketball careers. Now the WNBA is affording this same opportunity to foreign players.

The WNBA is recognized all over the world for having the best female basketball players. The league now also has a big mix of foreign players coming to America to fill in their summer schedules. With 16 teams in the WNBA and 11 players on each roster, there are not a lot of positions available. You absolutely have to be one of the best to make a team, or at least that is what you would think. There are 176 jobs available in the league; more than 50 of those positions belong to players from other countries: Africa, Hungary, Russia, Spain, Yugoslavia, Australia, Brazil and the list goes on.

Recently we celebrated the Fourth of July, and how lucky we are to live in the United States of America. Nothing makes you realize this more than to hear what some of these women have gone through in their lives and what their realities are. Many of these countries are still fighting for basic freedoms, and some still don't even have any kind of organized governments. Some of these girls don't see their families for years, or they may be lucky enough to see them once or twice a year. They come from families and areas so poor that I can't even begin to imagine or tell you what some of these girls have seen.

How truly blessed we are to live here in America. Thank goodness we have living documents such as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights that have been revised to give you and everyone basic freedoms and opportunities to make a better life for yourself if you're willing to work. Thank God, we live in a republic where your rights are guaranteed by law and not dependent on the whims of the majority.

That's what makes us different from any other country in the world, and that's why people, and basketball players, from other countries jump at chance to make a life here in America.

Becky Hammon, an all-state basketball player at Rapid City Stevens and an All-American at Colorado State, is in her third year of pro basketball as a member of the WNBA's New York Liberty.