Tamika CatchingsTamika is a player for the Indiana Fever of the WNBA and Turkish team Galatasaray. She is a prolific scorer close to and far from the basket, as well as a capable rebounder, ball handler, and defender. After playing at Adlai E. Stevenson High School and graduating from Duncanville High School, Tamika Catchings became one of the stars of the University of Tennessee women's basketball team. In 2001, she was drafted by the Indiana Fever. After sitting out the entire year in which she was drafted due to injury, she had an all-star rookie season in 2002. In 2011, she was voted in by fans as one of the Top 15 players in WNBA history. Catchings is a 9-time WNBA All-Star, a 5-time All-WNBA selection and is famous for recording the first ever quintuple double (25 points, 18 rebounds, 11 assists, 10 steals and 10 blocks in 1997). She serves as President of the WNBA Players Association as of the 2012 season. On August 23, 2014 she set the all time WNBA playoff scoring record off a three-point field goal in Game 3 of the eastern conference semifinals against the Washington Mystics surpassing Lisa Leslie's 908 career playoff points. She finished the game with 22 points, 10 rebounds and 7 steals also surpassing Lisa Leslie for most WNBA career playoff rebounds. After the 2014 season she ranks 1st all-time in career playoff points, 1st all-time in career playoff rebounds and 3rd in all-time career regular season scoring. She also holds the WNBA record for most consecutive playoff appearances of 10 straight seasons. In October 2014 in a TV interview, she revealed that she will be retiring after the 2016 Summer Olympics. She said; ""I will be retiring in 2016, Lord willing, if my body holds up," "Although I plan to step away as a player that is not to say I'll step away from the game, hopefully. I am so thankful and blessed to have had an opportunity to play the game I have loved for so long. "God has truly blessed me with an amazing playing career, and now it's time to start transitioning to what He has for me beyond the lines of the basketball floor." Tamika is the Founder of the Catch the Stars Foundation and is proud to help "prepare youth to catch their dreams one star at a time." The goal of her foundation is to provide youth with organized programs geared towards motivating them to set goals, dream bigger and achieve more. 2 Dr. Geri "Kay Kay" HartDr. "Kay Kay" Hart is a standout on and off the basketball court. She has made strides in her professional career that add to the powerhouse she was on the court. Kay Kay was a prominent All-American Academic Player at University of Kansas. She was a two time Big 8 player and league assists leader. Hart holds the record for most minutes played in Kansas Jayhawk history in the Big 8 with 3,841 minutes. She led KU her senior year to the Big 8 Champs with 22-6 record going undefeated in Big 8 and making it to the NCAA sweet 16.She is a “Jayhawk of Distinction” and one of the smartest basketball players in KU history. Awarded the NCAA Post Career Scholarship to Medical School with a 4.0 GPA. Dr. Hart is a pioneer in the game of professional women's basketball by playing in the WBA. She was apart of the Kansas Crusaders, WBA 1st Champion in 1993. She is featured on WBA Collector All-Star Cards as a two time All-Star and also played on the Iowa WBA expansion team in 1994. She continued to be apart of the WBA as a radio announcer and college basketball radio play by play commentator. She also spent one season as USA Women’s Basketball Team Doctor. Awarded the 2014 American Academy of Family Physicians Fellowship. The Degree of Fellow recognizes AAFP members who have distinguished themselves among their colleagues, as well as in their communities, by their service to family medicine, by their advancement of health care to the American people and by their professional development through medical education and research. . For more information on Dr. Geri Kay Hart please visit www.hutchclinic.com
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Lynette WoodardWoodard, the talented Wichita native, started making her mark early on the basketball court. As a ninth grader at Marshall Junior High School, Woodard was asked by the coach at Wichita North High to join the junior varsity team, but she declined. She preferred to wait until the following year to join the varsity team. At five-foot-eleven, Woodard was a standout in women's high school basketball. As a sophomore, she led her team to win the 5A state championship in 1975 and two years later received national recognition as an all-American high school team member. Woodard took her team-playing philosophy to the University of Kansas in 1977. The Lady Jayhawks won three straight Big Eight Championships during Woodard's career with a 108-32 record (1978-1981). Woodard scored a total of 3,649 points in four years. Many of her records and honors are still unchallenged today. The Kansan next put her talent to work for the U.S. Olympics. In 1980 Woodard was selected as one of twelve on the Olympic women's basketball team, but due to the U.S.-led boycott, her team did not participate. However, Woodard led a second Olympic women's basketball team to victory and to a gold medal in 1984. In 1985 Woodard was signed as the first woman on the world famous Harlem Globetrotters. She played as a Globetrotter for two years before competing professionally on Japanese and Italian teams. In 1990 she was inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame. The Cleveland Rockers signed her in 1997 to play in the new Women's National Basketball Association. Woodard served as the first athletics director for the Kansas City (Mo.) School District, as vice president of marketing for Magna Securities Corporation in New York City. In 1999 she began work as special assistant for external relations and women's basketball at the KU Athletics department, and head coach beginning in 2004. She was named one of Sports Illustrated's hundred greatest women athletes in 1999. In 2005, Lynette Woodard was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame. Dr. Robelyn GarciaDr. Robelyn Garcia had a stellar prep school, college and professional basketball career. As an all-star shooting guard she has had high scoring games of 56, 46, and 40 points. As a professional player Garcia won the first WBA championship alongside her Kansas Crusaders teammates in 1993. The following year her Kansas City Mustangs team went undefeated with a 15-0 record. She was also a 4-time WBA All-Star featured on the collector WBA All-Star Card Set by Fair Play Sports. “Robbie” lead the nation in scoring her freshman year in college with 31.5 ppg, she was a NJCAA VI All-American, and she is the career all-time leading scorer at Dodge City College where she is being inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame in May, 2015. Dr. Garcia has been a multidisciplinary professor for over twenty-five years. She currently teaches criminology, bio-gerontology and lifespan health and wellness at Arizona State University (ASU), Senior University and Personal Professors Online Academy. Dr. Garcia has eight college degrees and is currently working on her second doctorate at ASU as a Post-Doc Scholar in the Behavioral Health Program. In addition to her teaching she has several publications and has most recently been awarded a seat on the editorial board of International Journal of Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Colleagues, family and friends call Dr. Garcia an academic nomad and basketball gypsy because she has played, studied and worked at so many universities and lived in so many places. She has taught and studied at 23 colleges and lived in 11 different states including Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, British Columbia (Canada) and Nuevo León (Mexico). So far she has lived in 21 cities with the most time accumulated in Scottsdale, AZ, Wichita, KS, and Paradise Valley, AZ. Garcia is currently a resident of Scottsdale, Arizona where she is excited to be launching her “Dr. Robelyn Garcia Scholarship” program in mid 2015. E.C. HillCooper was raised in the Watts section of Los Angeles. She began playing organized basketball at age 16 and quickly took to the sport. She earned a scholarship to the University of Southern California, where she played in the shadow of Cheryl Miller while helping the team to national championships in 1983 and 1984. After college Cooper played professionally in Europe, primarily for a team in Parma, Italy, where she blossomed into a potent scorer and a tenacious defender. She was a member of the 1988 U.S. national team that won the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Seoul. By the end of the WNBA’s inaugural season, Cooper had established herself as the league’s first great player. Cooper helped lead the Comets to titles in 1998, 1999, and 2000, each time being recognized as the MVP of the play-offs. She was named the league MVP for the second time in 1998. Cooper retired in 2000 and became the head coach of the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury the following year. She returned to playing basketball in 2003 and permanently retired from the game in 2004 with WNBA career per-game averages of 21 points, 4.9 assists, 3.3 rebounds, and 1.56 steals. Cooper was named the women’s basketball head coach at Prairie View (Texas) A&M University in 2005. She was selected for induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010. Cynthia Cooper-DykeHill is currently in her second season as an assistant coach with the University of Arizona Wild- cats women’s basketball staff. She spent 7 seasons as an assistant coach at Northern Illinois (her Alma Mater), where she was a standout player, MVP, held countless records and holds a space in the Illinois Coaches Hall of Fame. E. C., played over 12 years of professional basketball, 4 of those were in the WNBA, the remaining 7 years in Europe, 1 in the ABL. Before the WNBA she would spend 1 season playing for the Chicago Twisters (WBA). Hill is an NIU Athletics alumni and Illinois Basketball Coaches’ Association Hall of Famer. Her name can be found throughout the Northern Illinois women’s basketball record book. As a player, she helped lead the Huskies to three-straight NCAA Tournament berths under NIU Hall of Fame coach Jane Albright. She was named a first-team U.S. Basketball Writers’ Association All-American, a Kodak District Four All- American, a preseason Street & Smith’s and Basketball Times All-American, Mid-Continent Conference Player of the Year, first-team All-Mid-Con and All-Mid- Con Tournament on a 25-6 NCAA Tourney squad that won the 1993-94 Mid-Con regular-season title with an 18-0 record. Hill led the league and ranked 16th nationally in scoring (22.0 ppg.). A two-time Northern Illinois MVP (1992-93, 1993-94), Hill was named the North Star Conference Newcomer of the Year with a 14.2 points per game average in 1991-92. E.C. graduated from Northern Illinois in 1995 with a degree in communications. Hill’s first coaching opportunity came at Robert Morris College in Chicago. She served as head coach during the 2004-05 season before returning to NIU for the 2005-06 campaign. Hill played professional basketball for the Chicago Twisters (1995), New England Blizzard (1996-99), Chicago Condors (1998-99) in the American Basketball League, with the Charlotte Sting (2000), Phoenix Mercury (2001), Los Angeles Sparks (2001) and Orlando Miracle (2002) in the WNBA and in many cities in Europe. She graduated from Northern Illinois in 1995 with a degree in communications. Hill has a daughter, Asia Janay Murray. She is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. |
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