By Eric Hodgson
Women's Basketball Magazine
Posted: December, 2003

Eliminated from the postseason weeks before, the Phoenix Mercury had nothing to play for in its final week of the 2003 WNBA season but pride. For guard Anna DeForge there has never been any better incentive.

DeForge, 27, joined the WNBA’s marquee monikers – Lisa Leslie, Tamika Catchings, Lauren Jackson, Swin Cash and Sheryl Swoopes – as she was named the season’s final player of the week.

After a stellar career at Nebraska, where she graduated in 1998 as the fifth leading scorer in Cornhusker history, she was drafted in the second round of the ABL draft by the San Jose franchise. After that league folded, she was assigned to the Detroit Shock in 2000 and then was traded to the Houston Comets.

Then she was diagnosed with hypoglycemia.

“It just didn’t allow me to compete at this level,” she said. “I went through a couple of practices and I was completely exhausted. It was like I hadn’t touched a basketball for months. I just knew it wasn’t right. I had tunnel vision and dizziness. It just wiped me out”

She was cut. So to prepare for a WNBA return, she joined the NWBL and led the league in scoring. Anne Donovan invited her to the Charlotte Sting’s 2002 training camp, but after an elbow to the eye in practice, she found herself again not making the cut.

During her second NWBL season, Mercury general manager Seth Sulka spotted her and asked her to come to training camp.

Leaving nothing to chance, DeForge dropped home 25 points – including all five 3’s in the team’s final preseason game – to claim her spot on the roster.

“I couldn’t control anything else that night besides my play and how I performed. That’s what I kept concentrating on,” she said. “Mentally, I never thought I could not play in this league.

“I knew Phoenix was going to be in a rebuilding mode,” she added. “But this is what every athlete dreams about, that one system where you flourish. This happened to be the spot for me.”

Throughout her pro basketball renaissance, she never stopped believing in herself.

“You always have to believe in yourself,” she said. “No matter what’s stacked against you, no matter what adversity comes your way. You can’t ever stop believing who you are, and never let anybody else define who you are. Don’t be content with somebody else’s definition of you because it’s probably wrong.”

COPYRIGHT 2003, WOMEN'S BASKETBALL MAGAZINE. Reprinted with permission.