With the 2024 WNBA All-Star weekend here–and we watch great players like Caitlin Clark perform–let’s not forget one of the greatest of all time, Jackie Stiles.
Before there were Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and Cameron Brink, there was Jackie Stiles. Stiles was born in Claflin, Kansas. In high school, she was a dominant offensive player. People would line up outside the gym to get tickets. In a town of six hundred, almost everybody would come to watch Jackie play.
Courtesy ESPN
She was a great shooter and led the country in scoring. Jackie was recruited to Southwest Missouri State University (now Missouri State University) and continued her domination. At the time, Stiles rewrote the NCAA women’s basketball record books and led the Lady Bears to the NCAA Women’s Final Four in 2001.
For 16 years, Stiles remained the NCAA career-scoring leader. She won the Wade Trophy in college and earned the Honda Award Player of the Year honors. Selected #4 by the Portland Fire in the 2001 WNBA draft, she continued to play well and was named the 2001 WNBA Rookie of The Year.
Stiles’s WNBA career was cut short due to injury (back issues). Once retired, Stiles went into coaching and worked at several colleges, including Missouri State and the University of Oklahoma.
Inducted into the National High School Hall of Fame and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tennessee, the game hadn’t seen anybody like her until Caitlin Clark came around. With the 2024 WNBA All-Star weekend here–and we watch great players like Clark perform–let’s not forget one of the greatest of all time, Jackie Stiles.
