Tamika Catchings - Catch a Star: Shining Through Adversity to Become a Champion

Tamika is just one of those people who could excel at anything she set her mind to. She just works that hard. She could be a Serena Williams, if she had chosen tennis. Well, she chose basketball.

Tauja Catchings

My dad tells about that day. About Tauja and me playing basketball outside in the driveway. About a friendly game of one-on-one.

It was our favorite thing, basketball. It was our whole familys favorite thing, even though as a family we enjoyed lots of sports, including soccer and volleyball. But if someone asked the question, Do you want to play? no one ever had to ask, Play what? That orange basketball was the fiery nucleus our family life spun around.

Its almost like theres a basketball gene that our parents passed down to their children. The Catchingses had it, big timemy dad playing in the pros with Dr. J and the 76ers; my older sister, Tauja, eventually playing in college and beyond; and my older brother, Kenyon, playing on his high school team until his dreams for the game were cut short by illness.

But more than any of them, I was bound and determined to be a basketball player. Even as a young girl, I knew basketball was going to be my game. And, no, it wasnt that I just had lucky genes. A lot of people have physical ability to playheight and agilitybut to play well at a high level requires more. Intensity. Desire. Passion. Focus. Determination. Hard work.

Back then, at the age of nine, I didnt have the physique for the game. Not yet. I was small, but really because of my slouching to blend in. And not only that, but I couldnt hear very wellId been born with moderate to severe hearing loss.

But so what if I was skinny and short and couldnt hear much? What I did have was intensity. I had desire. And I had passion and a willingness to work hard for the game like no one else in my family.

As Tauja and I played in the driveway that day, we were slamming hard against each other, as we always did. Our game was one of fighting for the ball, defending tough, scraping and scrapping to get the edge and score yet one more basket. Id sink a basket, and then Tauja would take the ball at the other end of the driveway, dribble it forward, juke and deke to try to get me off-balance, giving her an opening to burst through and slide toward the hoop for a layup. Then Id have the ball again, walking it up toward my big sister, and Id feint one way and dribble the other to get around her and score.

Later in life my dad would say one reason I got so good was because of all those early years playing against Tauja, who was the best talent around. I think thats right. She made me better. She was a year older, taller than me then, and in my eyes just perfect all around.

All those realities just made me compete harder.

Wed play so physical that wed sometimes send the other flying, with a yell or a shriek, clearly a foul in any refereed game but perfectly acceptable on the court of our driveway arena. Wed scrape an arm or a knee, wipe off a little blood, and start playing again, yelling and taunting and at times screaming at each other.

My dad tells about that day, how the yelling and screaming got to be too much for him. He could tell we were playing each other hard. He knew thered been some blood. Hed heard one scream too many. He walked out on the porch and yelled, Thats enough!

We froze in our tracks. He came out to the driveway, confiscated the ball, and took it inside with him.

Frustrated, Tauja stormed up to her room. I knew shed probably play with her dolls after she cooled down. Dad settled back down inside.

Sometime later, as Dad tells it, he looked up from his paper and realized Tauja had come into the house, but I hadnt. Wheres Tamika? he thought.

Looking outside, he saw me still in the driveway. And there I wasplaying.

With an imaginary basketball.

He watched me dribble my invisible ball behind my back, through my legs, then toward the basket, where Id launch myself for an imaginary layup. And I picked up that pretend ball as if it were real and walked it to the back of the driveway. And Id start all overdribbling, dodging an imaginary player so I could get free, jump, and shoot my imaginary ball, for an imaginary three-pointer, from beyond an imaginary arc.

I did this again and again. Over and over.