But her competitive spirit still burns with as much heat as ever.

So what is a person with such athletic passion -- but without the ability to run or jump without pain -- to do?

Get into cycling, of course.

Stiles didn't even own a bike until a couple months ago. Now she is touring the area, competing in road races and criteriums with a goal of not just being good, but being great.

You gonna bet against her?

Stiles, who became the NCAA career women's scoring leader during a magical career at Southwest Missouri State, is living in Wichita. She's attempting to get a career as a personal trainer off the ground and hopes to conduct basketball lessons for girls.

She hasn't given up on a return to the WNBA. But though her mind might tell her one thing, her body is whistling a different tune.

"Due to my injuries, the only way I've been able to stay in shape is by biking," Stiles said. "And I just decided this is the one way I could compete where my body doesn't limit me."

Stiles has joined Wichita's Oz Bicycle Club. She finished second in a 49-mile road race in Kansas City last weekend and won a criterium the next day.

"Once I competed in my first race I loved it," Stiles said. "I really missed that adrenaline rush, those nerves that you have before you compete."

Cycling doesn't pay the bills, though. And Stiles hasn't earned a paycheck in a while. That has led to an interest in personal training. Stiles has an arrangement with Wichita's Apex Personal Training and will begin there once she gets a client list.

She's also excited about teaching kids how to play basketball.

And as she's typically in the middle of almost everything, Stiles even had some involvement last week with the donation of $800,000 by Springfield, Mo., developer John Q. Hammons that will help get the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame open this fall in Old Town.

Stiles developed a friendship with the 87-year-old Hammons while she was a player at Southwest Missouri State. Hammons attended most home games and, like most SMSU fans, was enamored by Stiles.

"We still talk once a week," Stiles said.

She served as an intermediary between Hammons and Bob Hanson, president of the Greater

Wichita Area Sports Commission and one of the major fund-raisers for the Hall of Fame.

"I asked Jackie if she would ask (Hammons) if I could talk to him," Hanson said. "He called me the next day. I knew Jackie was pretty special to him."

Stiles said she felt a little uncomfortable at first, but that her belief that the KSHOF can be a great thing for Wichita and Kansas enabled her to attempt to make the connection.

"It had to be something very important for me to approach Mr. Hammons because I didn't want to jeopardize our friendship," Stiles said. "And for us not to have a Kansas Sports Hall of Fame would be very disappointing."

Almost as disappointing as having her basketball career cut short by injuries to her legs, feet, shoulders and arms.

"The thing that's really hard is that I had to stop playing and it wasn't on my own terms," Stiles said. "I still love the game of basketball so much and I would still love to play. Hopefully, in time, I'll feel good enough and my body will allow me to play again. But in the meantime, I have to start my next career."

Cycling will be just a hobby, but one Stiles will attack with her unique zeal.

"I'm going to try and race somewhere every weekend, or every other weekend," she said. "That's how addicted I am to it already. I really want to dedicate myself and see how far it takes me. There's a long ways to go, though. I'm still a beginner."

One of Stiles' sports heroes is six-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong. Both were previously sponsored by Nike but never met.

Stiles, though, did receive a phone message from Armstrong in 2001, after her first surgery.

"I was really having a rough time dealing with things," she said. "I had picked up his book and read it and it was so inspirational. My Nike rep found out he was kind of my idol, that I was in love with Lance Armstrong."

Eventually word got to Armstrong. He happened to call, though, when Stiles was on an airplane and her cell phone was turned off.

"When I got off the plane I had this long message from him," Stiles said. "I listened to that message over and over again, every single day. I thought it was amazing that here's this guy who doesn't even know who I am and he takes time out of his day to call me. I was devastated that my cell phone could only keep messages for so long, so eventually it got erased."

Armstrong overcame cancer to become the world's greatest cyclist.

His story inspired Stiles. And who's to say she won't have an inspirational cycling tale of her own someday?