News Articles – August 27, 2002

By Scott Puryear
News-Leader
August 27, 2002

For the first time in her life, Jackie Stiles is willing to accept that taking a lengthy break from basketball is a necessary evil. A miserable, injury-plagued sophomore season in the WNBA made the former Southwest Missouri State star finally realize she has no other choice. After having surgery in New York last week on her damaged right wrist, to be followed by a procedure to cure bursitis in her right heel scheduled for Sept. 6 in Portland, Ore., Stiles knows she must get well before her basketball can get better. “I’m going to be down for a long, long time,” Stiles said, revealing she could be kept off the practice floor for three to six months. “I’ve just decided I’m not going to set foot on a basketball court — I don’t care if it takes me taking a year off — and I’m not going to play another WNBA season unless I’m healthy. “I know, for me, taking a break is easier said than done. I love this game so much. But I have to do it if I want to continue to play. I don’t want to end my career at 23.” Without question, Stiles does not want her playing days to end the way her second season did with the Portland Fire. Frustrating summer After winning the WNBA’s Rookie of the Year award in 2001, when she shot 40 percent from the field and averaged 14.9 points per game, Stiles struggled from the start this summer. The 5-foot-9 guard played in just 21 of the Fire’s 32 games, averaging just over 18 minutes per, and finished with an un-Stiles-like 31 percent field-goal shooting and an average of just six points per game. The wrist injury — scar tissue built up from a Sept. 11, 2001, surgery — limited her range of motion and had an adverse effect on her shot. The bursitis in her heel, caused by a small bone rubbing against her Achilles’ tendon and aggravated by the new Nike shoes she wore, limited Stiles’ explosive jumps, such a big key to her offensive game. Combined, both ailments did unprecedented damage to Stiles’ confidence. The same Stiles who had a dream senior season at SMS — leading the Lady Bears to the Final Four and finishing as the NCAA’s scoring leader for both single season and career — began to doubt whether she even belonged in the WNBA. “It was tough for me personally,” Stiles said. “Hearing things in the crowd like, ‘How’d you get rookie of the year?’ taking that criticism, playing limited minutes … but I wanted to do it for (Coach Linda) Hargrove, wanted to stick it out. “I stuck it out in hopes of (the Fire) being in the playoffs, me being able to get the team over the top, and it didn’t happen. It’d be nice to already be a couple of months into my rehab so I could go play overseas this winter, but I also learned a lot of good lessons I otherwise wouldn’t have experienced. I took a lot away from the failure.” The Fire finished a franchise-best 16-16, fifth in the Western Division and just out of the playoff chase. They did put together one midseason stretch — with Stiles on the injured list — when they won 10 of 11 games. At that time, Stiles thought more seriously about sitting out the remainder of the season, feeling as if the Fire were almost better off without her. But Hargrove persuaded Stiles to come back in at least a reserve role, thinking that even though she was hobbled, Stiles’ competitiveness and ability to hit a big shot in pressure situations could be factors down the stretch. Ray of hope There was one clear flashback to the Stiles of old. It came in the Fire’s next to last game of the season, an 83-74 loss at Seattle, when Stiles scored a season-high 18 points on 7-of-13 shooting (including 4-of-6 from 3-point range) while playing 28 minutes. It was just the pick-me-up for a Stiles who otherwise seemed headed for an off-season of doubting her abilities. “That game gave me so much hope … it’s what is going to get me through the next six months,” Stiles said. “I felt like I wanted the ball every possession, and for me to be able to do that in the biggest game of the year, with the stakes the highest, it gave me a lot of confidence that I can come back from this and be my normal self. It’d been so long since I’d felt like that, where I felt like I was in a zone.” It’s a feeling Stiles hopes to recreate with regularity next summer, after a winter of healing. Doctors expect the wrist surgery to return her range of motion to around 85 percent, a big improvement over a painful, frustrating condition which at times this summer left Stiles with just 25-70 percent flexion. “I never had any consistency (with the wrist), and it just drove me crazy,” Stiles said. “I don’t have to have all my range of motion back, but I do have to have consistency.” While the wrist operation was more of a housecleaning procedure, her foot surgery late next week is a bit more complicated. Doctors will shave off the bone that’s rubbing her Achilles and will trim off part of her heel to clear more room for the tendon. Stiles said the doctors “want to see every step of my rehab,” so she will be required to remain in Portland for much of the winter. This means Stiles will be forced to cut back not only on her time in the Ozarks, but on her many national appearances and endorsement opportunities. Back in Springfield She will return to Springfield in mid-October for the unveiling ceremony of a bronze statue of her, courtesy of John Q. Hammons, at the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. Also around that time, Stiles will have corrective jaw surgery done in Springfield. If you’re scoring at home, counting her cyst removal surgery last spring, that’s five operations in 13 months … although Stiles is proud to boast that she still hasn’t had to spend a night in a hospital. “I know the ropes on these surgeries now,” she said with a laugh. “I should be telling them how it all works.” Despite her struggles, Stiles remains a hot commodity. She has a national ad campaign with Pizza Hut in the works. NBC wanted her to do color commentary for the WNBA playoffs last weekend, but Stiles politely declined. Stiles also confirmed, without providing much detail, that she will team with a local businessman to open a sports restaurant bearing her name in Springfield in the coming months. “The crazy thing now is it’s all still coming my way, and I’m embarrassed by it,” Stiles said. “I’m like, ‘Why do you want me? Did you see the year I had?’ ” That, of course, is something Stiles hopes surgery, rest and rehab can cure. Her goal is to be able to go to Italy or Spain in late January or February and to play at least a month or two of professional ball to work herself back into shape. But she also must balance that hope with the knowledge she has to allow herself sufficient time to heal to be able to live up to her standards. “I’ll tell you this: I can’t come back and be mediocre,” Stiles said. “If I can’t come back and get to the level I was at, that elite level, I’m going to have to give it up, because I’d just be miserable. “My whole life I’ve been driven to be the best I can be. And I just couldn’t handle being mediocre. … “I know there are going to be some tough times, but I’ve put too much into this not to give it a second shot.”