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Jackie Blue: Former SMS star still wants to play
By Kathleen Nelson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 7, 2005 Almost four years ago, Jackie Stiles closed one chapter of her life and began another on the floor of Savvis Center. She said goodbye to college basketball after scoring her NCAA record 3,393rd point in Southwest Missouri State's loss to Purdue in the semifinals of the Final Four. She opened another, which seemed destined to be just as bright. Less than a month after the Final Four, Stiles was selected fourth in the WNBA draft by the Portland Fire and by season's end was the league's rookie of the year. Since her rookie year, Stiles' body has betrayed her. She has had 13 surgeries and missed two WNBA seasons. The seeds for the injuries, though, were sewn through years of overuse and playing through pain. "You don't know what's not normal," Stiles said, noting that in college, "I didn't have any injury that made me miss time, just little nagging things. My style was aggressive. I was a target for the defense every night." At first, Stiles seemed up to the task, averaging 32 minutes and 15 points a game in her first year as a pro. Unlike many opponents in college, though, every team in the WNBA had players quick enough and strong enough to flatten her when she tried to use her 5-foot-8, 140-pound frame to slash through the lane. In addition, Stiles was trying to finish course work from the previous semester, which limited her to about four hours of sleep a night. After her rookie season, she had torn ligaments in the right wrist, a fracture in the left and a pulled groin. She had her first surgery, on her right wrist, soon after her rookie season, September 11, 2001, in New York. "It's been bad since then," she said. Following surgery, she reverted to the formula that earned her success at Claflin High in Kansas and at Southwest Missouri State. "The harder I worked, the more I was rewarded," she said. Thus, she piled personal appearances on top of the course work necessary for finishing her degree. Again, she managed just four hours of sleep a night. As the 2002 WNBA season drew closer, she said, "I tried to play catch-up with the wrist and pushed pretty hard." She compensated for the lack of mobility in her wrist by altering her shoulder motion and takeoff, which caused problems with her Achilles tendon and rotator cuff. She played just 21 of 32 games in 2002, after which the Fire folded and she underwent surgery for both injuries. The Los Angeles Sparks selected her in the dispersal draft and deactivated her for the 2003 season after learning that she needed further surgery. With basketball off her plate, Stiles tried to focus on fixing all that ailed her but in the process became a vagabond. She has consulted doctors in New York, Portland, San Diego, and Great Bend, Kan. She has rehabbed in Kansas City and Colorado Springs. "Most of my stuff is in storage," she said. "I'm always living out of a suitcase. It's been tough." She has leaned on her parents and her boyfriend, Brian Hargrove, whose mother, Linda, coached Stiles in Portland. Stiles said Brian "understands the lifestyle. He has had to help me on crutches. He has been there for me when I was really down." She also has returned to her hometown and to Springfield for basketball camps, where she said she meets girls who play year-round at age 6. "No wonder they get tendinitis at 11 or 12," Stiles said. "I want to teach quality over quantity." The message might sound strange for someone who reached folk hero status because she shot 1,000 free throws a day in high school. "I never worried about sleep or proper nutrition," she said. "Now, I tell them 'you won't think those little things are as important as a weight workout. But they are.'" She had hoped to play this fall in Australia but backed out because of shoulder surgery. One week ago, Stiles traveled to San Diego for her 13th - and, she says, final - surgery, this one to repair her Achilles tendon. She'll need four to five months of rehab before she can play at full-speed, which means that she won't play as expected for the Lubbock Hawks of the National Women's Basketball League. The earliest she could play is the middle of the WNBA season, but the Sparks haven't contacted her in months. "Realistically, I think I'm looking at a league in Europe in the fall," she said. In the interim, she is serving as the Hawks assistant coach. Darryl Linden, the Hawks assistant GM, said the players "have instant respect for her. When she says, 'You need to work harder,' players know she means it because of how hard she works." She has turned down offers to coach in the college ranks, most notably from the University of Kansas and from Cheryl Burnett, her coach in Springfield who has moved on to Michigan. "If I was serious about making a comeback, college coaching would take too much time," Stiles said. "I don't want to look back and say 'What if?' Down the road, one offer will come when I'm ready. But I've invested too much in rehab to give up now." The time to give up will come, perhaps by the end of the year. In that case, Stiles said, she'll make peace with her playing career. "You've got to find the balance," she said. "I didn't have it, but I wouldn't trade anything for the experience of a Final Four." Which brings her back to St. Louis. Fans in the area appointed the Bears the "hometown" team and seemed to adopt Stiles as an honorary St. Louisan. Her brother, P.J., played basketball at Washington University, where he is a pre-med major. She has returned to St. Louis to visit him and to attend the World Series. "I've been to Final Fours since then, and none of them were as wild or wonderful. It really rocked," she said. "And then at the World Series it was the same kind of feeling. I'd love to call it home someday." And start another chapter. TO THE TOP |