Kate Starbird
Some info provided by The Best of the Best in Women's Basketball by Rachel Rutledge.
Kate Starbird is my favorite basketball player in the whole world!She's a great role model and I
want to have a sense of hummor like her when I grow up.So she's basically my hero.
Kate was born in West point,NY and was the middle child of five kids.She was an outstanding athlete
which was quite a surprise because noone in her family a aptitude fr sports.Her first sport was soccer.
Then since she was so tall and gangly ,she turned to basketball.When she started she had noone to help
her so soon she developed a ackward looking shot ,which remains a little unchanged as of today.Then she
started playing with men that were older than her which helped her out alot. Being in a military family,
she travled around the US.Untill,they settled down in Tacoma, Washington.Their she played her high
school ball and was Washington state's leading scorer for boys or girls.(2,753 points)During her
High School career she averaged 29.3 points,7.7 rebounds,4.2 assits,4.6 steals and 3.5 blocks.
She was also named Washington's player of the year in 1993.She was also part of the National Honor
Society and graduated with a 3.95 grade point average.
Kate went to Stanford University( even though her Dad wanted her to go to Duke) where she broke
the school's all-time scoring record.(2,215 points)She was an amazing player and still is.Throughout
her four years at Stanford, she averaged 16.9 points,
3.9 rebounds and 3 assits.While leding them to 3 final four apperiances. She made the PAC-10
All-Freshman squad and All-conferense team as a sophmore.Plus she was the leading scorer in the PAC-10.
She was also named the 1997 Naismith Player of the Year.She had a B+ average and majored in computer
science.
On April 22,1997 Bird signed on with the ABL to play with the Seattle Reign.
Why did she choose the ABL over the WNBA?
"I weighed alot of pro's ans con's and when I looked at it the ABL was just so dominating for me
interms of competitiveness.So for me,it was actually a pretty easy decision." Her first year as a pro
didn't turn out as the way she and other people expected.The Reign had the worst record in the
league too.However during the 3rd year of the ABL things turned around.She was looking more like the
old bird averaging 13.6 points and 1.7 steals a game.However, on December 22, 1998 the most horrifying
and worst day of my life.The ABL folded.
After that Kate got drafted to play with the Sacramento Monarchs.It wasn't her best year and she
averaged only 2 points and a few minutes a game.So to cheer her up I made her a birthday card and
wrote her a letter.Then to my surprise she wrote back to me!!!
Then she got trade to Miami in the expansion draft and then traded to the Utah Starzz in exchande
for Elena Boraniva.There she played much better and had a season high of 17 points and made a impact
coming off the bench.She finished the last game of the season in stile by scoring 13 points and
4 assits.Bird said that she hopes to re-sign with the team next season.She only signed a one year
contract because of the low salery.