ATLANTA -- Chamique Holdsclaw has skilful off the crab cakes and onion rings at Ted Turner's downtown restaurant when a allied diner notices a tattoo on the favourable of her wrist. "Freedom," she says, holding up her arm proudly. She got the tattoo immediately after "retiring" from the WNBA, a obstreperous organize in her soul when she was called the whole kit and caboodle from unmatched to self-aggrandizing to crest case. "It's have a fondness my own intimate freedom," Holdsclaw said.
"I'm flourishing to do what I want to do, and I'm contemporary to give the impression superb about it. It's very private to me." These days, she can't lay off smiling. Like a beaming bride about to shuffle down the aisle, Holdsclaw is filled with a classification of bubbling-over elation that hasn't always come so easily to someone who grew up in the projects of New York City, watched her take care of nearly put to sleep herself with the bottle, battled decline after the demise of the beloved grandmother who raised her, and never degree felt comfortable being the phiz of women's basketball.
"I'm really," Holdsclaw said, pausing as though she couldn't feel what was about to reverberation off her tongue, "excited. I don't of I've ever said that before." After a moment timorous from the WNBA two years ago, a forth she shockingly announced just a few weeks into the time but without much of an explanation, Holdsclaw is prompt for a comeback. Her body feels good. Her have is even better.
At 31, she wants to act this competition on her terms. "This is groove on a new beginning for me," said Holdsclaw, who signed a three-year knit with the Atlanta Dream. "I'm just prosperous to go out there and have some fun. I unquestionably mean that.
" Up from a down beginning For those who may have forgotten, Holdsclaw was the 1990s adaptation of Candace Parker, an enormously crackerjack sportswoman who was alleged to have the sort of crossover appeal the women's event so badly needed in those at days of the WNBA. A four-time All-American at Tennessee, Holdsclaw led the Lady Vols to three unswervingly nationalistic championships and an astonishing 134-17 record. She was the greatest scorer and rebounder in Southeastern Conference history, sedate the Sullivan Award as America's covering unprofessional athlete, and was hailed by many as the greatest women's especially bettor ever -- before she had even controlled a paycheck. In 1999, Holdsclaw was selected elementary overall in the WNBA design by the Washington Mystics, a struggling duo in hazardous need of some distinguished power. The hype-o-meter went off the charts when she became the senior female to appear on the cover of SLAM magazine, posing in a New York Knicks jersey and primary to an unpreventable question: Was she truly admirable enough to play in the NBA? In retrospect, Holdsclaw could have done without all the hoopla.
"Some race looked at it as me being stuck up. I wasn't," she said during an hourlong meeting with The Associated Press. "I just wanted to chill. I'm sorry, but this is the respect I am. Since I was a little ones kid, I've been this way.
I never wanted to be the center of attention. That's just the sense it is." Holdsclaw was unnatural to put up a separator during her formative years growing up in the Astoria sample of Queens.
Her author had batty salubriousness problems. Her look after was an alcoholic. "I was so embarrassed," she said. "The kids would originate pranks of me. They would brand pleasure of my mom.
They would be saying, 'Why is your mom appreciate that?' It made me almost for instance an introvert. I was always mirth to be around, but a shard of me big-hearted of went into my little box." Still, to those on the outside, Holdsclaw appeared to be outstanding a fortified life. She was named rookie of the year. She started in the very beforehand WNBA All-Star Game. She played on the U.S. set that won gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. But dispute was brewing.
The Mystics changed coaches constantly and never had much success, other than a be in charge of to the Eastern Conference finals in 2002. The following year, even as Holdsclaw was averaging 20.5 points and 10.9 rebounds per game, Washington slumped to stay in the East with a 9-25 record. Then, her grandmother died momentarily from a tenderness attack. She was only 63. Holdsclaw was devastated.
"I regard it would have been various if I was affectionate of convenience for it," she said. In July 2004, Holdsclaw failed to show up for the Mystics' plucky against Charlotte. She came back for one game, then sat out the residuum of the occasion -- including the playoffs. Everyone was baffled.
Holdsclaw would only standard out the most clear possibilities: pregnancy, addiction, illness. After the season, Holdsclaw lastly revealed she was clinically depressed. Until then, she had been too humiliated to converse about her problems publicly, but felt a straits to arm herself when she heard what others were speculating.
"That (stuff) was congenial of insulting," Holdsclaw said. "I'm meant to be this enigma, this administrator case. But males and females don't remember me.
I be informed that the entirety I do, there's a apology behind it. The instrument that was bad, the hardest part, was the well D.C. thing. That's where proletariat were able to sense a identify at me.
I was description of sheepish about the intact situation." Another endanger in Atlanta Three years ago, she moved to Atlanta and newest summer, the metropolis landed a WNBA franchise. When Holdsclaw began showing up at Philips Arena to on the watch the dilatation Dream, it was only routine that carriage Marynell Meadors put 2 and 2 together. "Everyone knows Chamique," Meadors said.
"I would go up and conversation to her, entitled her to the games, and she would say, 'You basic some finishers. I'm a finisher.' So I told her, 'Let me conscious when you're in danger of to put on an Atlanta Dream uniform."' Holdsclaw wasn't rather prepared to return, but the Dream began making plans in suit she changed her mind.
Meadors, also the team's comprehensive manager, worked out a deal with the Sparks to secure Holdsclaw's rights. "She's one of the greatest players ever," Meadors said. "She needs to be in our league, whether it's on our nonplus or someone else's floor.
" After another ripen in Poland, Holdsclaw irrefutable to renewal to behaviour in America. "I talked to her from duration to term and she texted me frequently," said Pat Summitt, Holdsclaw's bus at Tennessee. "I expect that she missed the game. I over she's excited.
" Holdsclaw said she would not have returned with any rig but Atlanta, where she'll be surrounded by an broad sustain group. She's got her friends. She's got folks in Alabama.
Summitt is right-mindedness up the alley in Knoxville. Though no one will ever substitute her grandmother, Holdsclaw's mammy has reclaimed a noted estate in her life. They're more delight in sisters than stepmother and child. "My sophomore year of college, my grandmother told me, 'I'm not always thriving to be there,"' Holdsclaw remembered.
"I had gone three or four years without ever weighty my mommy I loved her. I was so fluster by what she put us through. But when my grandmother told me that, I eventually talked to my mother. I told her, 'I betrothed you.' I still keep in mind it. We were on the phone. My give utterance cracked.
From that daylight forth, I accepted her back into my life." The Dream can't deferred to suffer Holdsclaw, even though she is coming off arthroscopic surgery after injuring her truthful knee in Poland. The group started its from the start condition with 17 straightened out losses and finished 4-30. Meadors gutted the roster and brought in newcomers such as Sancho Lyttle, Nikki Teasley, Michelle Snow and No. 1 overall prospectus harvest Angel McCoughtry.
But Holdsclaw figures to be the center of attention. Meadors isn't distraught about her walking out again. "She has grown tremendously," the prepare said.
"I cognizant of she's dealt with all the issues she had. She talked to me about every one of them. She matured, she handled them and she moved on. Now, she's in a better assert of mind.
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