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Still Jackie Oh!
By Elizabethe Holland, Post-Dispatch, 5/27/01 Even as she takes her first halting steps as a pro, Jackie Stiles continues to be enveloped by the spotlight. Jackie Stiles figured, hoped and prayed that once the NCAA Tournament was behind her, the madness, the phone calls, the requests for every precious moment of her time would cease. But, alas, the bedlam only had begun. "I thought, 'Once the season is over, it will slow down,'" said Stiles, whose career at Southwest Missouri State ended with her establishing the NCAA career scoring record of 3,393 points. "But no, it got twice as hectic." After SMS' dreamlike, absolutely unpredictable run to the Women's Final Four at the Savvis Center, Stiles became the hottest thing since mid-August in St. Louis. When her irrepressible smile wasn't being beamed nationwide via some interview or another, she was meeting dignitaries, accepting awards, signing autographs, trying to find an agent and even appearing as the queen of the day in a parade to honor her in her hometown of Claflin, Kan. After what seemed barely a wisp of time after SMS' loss to Purdue in the national semifinals, Stiles was off to New Jersey for the WNBA Draft, in which she was drafted fourth overall, by the Portland Fire. From there, it was back to Springfield, Mo., for the most exhausting cram session of her life. Having learned firsthand that an NCAA tourney run can wreak havoc on a student-athlete, Stiles found herself desperately behind in her coursework. Further, the WNBA's training camp was set to begin May 2, leaving her what must have seemed like three minutes to accomplish three months of work. So when "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" asked her to come on the show, she passed. And when the Cardinals and the Royals asked her to throw out the first pitch at games, she respectfully, regretfully declined. As it was, her schedule had come to allow her a mere four hours of sleep each night. "I'd have to start my workouts at 11 o'clock at night to get them in," said Stiles, who has been obsessive regarding workouts since her high school days. "There were so many things coming at me, I actually had to turn my phone off for the last two weeks (before training camp) because I couldn't take it anymore. It was just ringing every minute." Stiles pressed on and accomplished what she could. She had to settle for one incomplete in her 17 hours of course work, but already has planned to return to SMS in the fall to do what she must to graduate. In the meantime, another pressure - this one perhaps more enduring - has settled in. Though Stiles still can't believe she's being paid to play basketball, the 5-foot-8 guard is attempting to fend off expectations that hound her wherever she goes. There are those in the WNBA, which will begin its fifth season Monday, who think Stiles will become just another average player on the pro level, not the phenom she was in averaging 30 points a game her senior year. They think she's too small. They think that this league of quicker, bigger, feistier players will squish her like a bug . . . or at least hold her to, say, 15 points per game. And then there are those on the other end of the spectrum, those who expect her to not only become the Portland Fire's savior (the Fire finished 10-22 last year), but beyond. In Springfield, charter-bus trips are being arranged to take Stiles-loving fans to see their star play in Indianapolis and Houston. And take the headline in a recent edition of The Oregonian, Portland's daily newspaper: "Jackie Stiles is antidote to Blazers." The pressure, indeed, is on. "I feel those expectations and I think it's starting to bother me," Stiles said late last week. "The expectations are unreal around here. . . . People just think I'm going to come in here and do what I did in college and I knew coming in here that that was not possible, that there was going to be a big learning curve, a big adjustment for I don't know how long. "But I've always kind of been under a lot of pressure in my career at SMS and even in high school, so I think I just need to block it out a little bit and just focus on what I need to be doing on the court." So far, her court appearances haven't been terribly Jackie-esque. Although she was suffering from a hamstring sprain at the time, she scored only two points in the Fire's preseason opener against the Seattle Storm. Since then, she's averaged 8.1 points per game. Her most memorable preseason contribution was a buzzer-beater over two defenders that gave Portland the win over the Minnesota Lynx with 5.9 seconds on the clock. "That felt good," Stiles said. "I couldn't hit a shot before that, but that one went in." Once Stiles adjusts to the new system in which she's playing and learns to shake off overwhelming expectations, Fire coach Linda Hargrove expects she will have the confidence and ability to become more of a contributor. But there's no rush, the coach said. "The expectations are not coming from us and from our team," Hargrove said. "She's a kid who wants to really please people and do the right thing and feels that she is letting someone else down if she doesn't perform to their expectations. We're just trying to keep her as grounded as we can and let her know that we believe in her abilities. We're not looking at any short-term fix, we're looking at her career over the long haul for us." Many of Stiles' new teammates have expressed the same message to her, among them St. Louisan Kristin Folkl, who was traded to Portland from Minnesota during the offseason. "A number of people have been doing that, trying to reassure her that if you have one bad game, it doesn't matter," said Folkl. "It's a snapshot in your entire career." Stiles has done well in the spotlight thus far, Folkl said. And as was the case in Springfield, her teammates have taken to her. "Before I met her, I couldn't believe that anyone so talented could be that likable," Folkl said. "I just thought people were exaggerating, but it's true. She's so humble and so nice." And, knowing Stiles' gym-rat work ethic, some believe it's only a matter of time before she establishes a comfort level on the court and begins meeting some of the expectations of fans - and Stiles herself. In the meantime, the madness will continue. Stiles will continue to be recognized in airports and on the street, an occurrence that will only grow more frequent when endorsements put her face out there even more. She has signed a deal with Cingular wireless and is in the process of signing on with Nike and Coca-Cola, according to her agency. "I can't even understand this attention," said Stiles, who is in such demand for interviews that it has prompted the Fire to schedule conference calls with her. "It's taken awhile to get used to it, and I'm still not. It's just really hard to believe that I'm in this position. Everything just happens so fast. But I know the No. 1 thing I can never do is become complacent, because at this level it's so tough to make it. You've got to continue to work hard and get better each and every day or people are going to pass you by. "I have to prove myself at this level." TO THE TOP |