With the WNBA set to tip off its 12th season as the most successful and competitive women's sports league in the world, it seemed fitting to look back to when we were 12. We recently asked several WNBA stars what basketball was like for them at 12 and what they were up to back then. Here are their answers:
| Becky Hammon, San Antonio Silver Stars It was all about David Robinson, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley. Those are the guys I grew up watching. I grew up in South Dakota, so it's not like we had a lot of big-time college spectator sports around. So I watched the NBA all of the time. I honestly remember watching Sheryl Swoopes in 1993, which made me maybe a sophomore in high school, and that was the first time I really remember paying attention to women's basketball. |
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Janel McCarville, New
York Liberty I don't even know if I was playing basketball when I was 12. I was probably more into football and soccer when I was 12. All of my brothers played football, so that was the biggest thing for me back then. Basketball wasn't as popular for me. I started playing when I was 13 or 14, I think. |
| Tamika Catchings, Indiana Fever Wow, basketball was my life, even at 12 years old. Obviously the WNBA wasn't around, so I followed the NBA. That was my life. I came home from school, did my homework, went outside to play basketball, then came home and watched games on TV. In terms of playing, I was on a junior high team. |
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Erin Buescher, |
| Seimone Augustus, Minnesota Lynx "I was playing AAU ball, but the women's game back then wasn't as big as it is now, so I was playing with the boys." |
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