The woman many have called the LeBron James of women’s basketball was present at Oregon’s NCAA first-round volleyball match against Delaware.
The reason behind her presence at the game is a more fascinating story.
Elena Delle Donne, a freshman middle hitter from Wilmington, Del., registered five kills as the Blue Hens lost to the Ducks, 3-0. For most, this would be the first they’d ever heard of her. Personally, I take pride in accumulating knowledge about the basketball world, and I remember her from as early as 2005.
That year, the then-15-year-old prodigy was profiled by ESPN as a bright, gifted, grounded young player with no conceivable limit on her basketball prowess. Despite standing 6-foot-4, she played guard for Ursuline Academy in Wilmington, handling the ball and scoring with ease from both the post and the perimeter. Her overall skill level and athleticism for the guard position made her arguably the best college basketball recruit since Lisa Leslie. She won three state championships, garnered McDonald’s High School All-American honors and committed to Connecticut to play under the legendary Geno Auriemma, with a national championship within reach in her freshman year.
In the interview, Delle Donne managed to rise above even her immense talent, coming across as well-spoken, fiery and intelligent. The ESPN piece also revealed her close relationship with her older sister, Elizabeth, who is blind, deaf and inflicted with cerebral palsy. She seemed more than ready to inherit the title of global icon for women’s basketball.
Fast forward to Dec. 28, when Delle Donne (firmly entrenched as a Blue Hen) was again interviewed by ESPN’s investigative journalism show, Outside the Lines. Two days after checking into summer school in Storrs, Conn., she returned home. Delle Donne told Auriemma and her Connecticut teammates that she would not play college basketball in the 2008-09 season. She eventually completed a transfer to Delaware and opted to play a sport she’d participated in for all of one year in high school.
She was burned out from basketball.
Ever since the age of 13, she told ESPN, her passion for the game was gone. She was “living a lie” and putting up with a façade of happiness through basketball as long as she could. But enough was enough.
Watching her speak, I could feel the collective sets of jaws dropping across the country. How could she? Or, how dare she?
Therein lies the perilous disconnect: If Elena Delle Donne is so good at playing basketball, how can she justify leaving the sport?
Sports fans feel insulted when their passion for the game isn’t met by players on the collegiate or professional level. They feel cheated out of the money they spend to watch them play. And as the individual purchasing power of a sports fan has increased and evolved, the passive player has overtaken the bad player as the most hated subset of athlete.
This did not look easy for Delle Donne. And it could not have been. She admitted to ESPN that she turned down an invitation to play with the U.S. Under-19 national basketball team. The next step from there is the U.S. Olympic team and the pinnacle of competitive women’s basketball as it exists on this planet. Delle Donne’s parents, Joan and Ernie, declined to be interviewed on camera by ESPN the second time around, and a former AAU coach of Delle Donne’s described the confusion within the Delle Donne household about the breaking news.
It’s easy for the less athletically inclined to rationalize broken dreams and lack of competitive fire because we hit our ceilings much earlier. The only way I can imagine a comparably strong reaction is to hypothesize an extreme: Say LeBron James held a press conference tomorrow and tersely stated, “I don’t love basketball anymore, so I’m giving it up.” To basketball fans, the Earth might as well stop rotating. Basketball is what LeBron does, and it’s what Elena did.
Honesty in athletes is a rare trait appreciated with uncommon sensitivity by the masses. Journalists find it especially refreshing. Catharsis occurs when athletes own up to mistakes.
This is no mistake. To realize she’s not bluffing, simply look at the lengths Delle Donne has gone to keep her story straight. Making such statements to the national media takes self-assurance of an unheard-of degree. After watching that second interview, it is impossible for me to imagine her ever suiting up for a college basketball team, much less a professional or Olympic team. Delle Donne surely understands the repercussions of her actions.
I can come to grips with seeing Elena Delle Donne as the Delaware middle hitter and not the phenomenal basketball player. Clearly, Delle Donne herself already has.
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