ONE-ON-ONE WITH CANDACE PARKER, THE U.T. LADY VOLS BASKETBALL STAR • MrVolunteer's Blog

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by: MrVolunteer

ONE-ON-ONE WITH CANDACE PARKER, THE U.T. LADY VOLS BASKETBALL STAR
Dec 12, 2005 | 1:03PM | report this

KNOXVILLE - The Tennessee Sports Information Department announced last week that Candace Parker was named Lady Vol Athlete of the Week. What an understatement. Not only is she most likely the best women’s athlete on the UT Knoxville campus, but she may very well be the best player ever in women’s college basketball history.

Time will tell about that, but when we caught up with her for our interview with the red-shirt freshman forward at Thompson-Boling Arena on the eve of her game with the nationally-ranked Texas Lady Longhorns, we were certainly impressed.

The day before games can be a light workout, and certainly Coach Pat Summitt has had a team that has done a lot of playing and practicing since they just returned from three games on three consecutive nights in the Virgin Islands, but Parker had barely broken a sweat after a two-hour practice as she iced down her knees and sat down with me for a one-on-one interview. The first thing you notice about her is how attractive she is, her calm demeanor, and her disarming personality. She is as smooth and silky off the court as she is on it, and she was delighted to talk about things other than her athletic career. She seemed as fresh as a daisy when she came over courtside to talk to me in our conversation following practice. Here is what she had to say:

Q: Coach Bruce Pearl, the new men’s head basketball coach of the Volunteers, tells me that he makes sure every recruit he brings in here meets you. Do you think you’re helping him in his own recruiting as he builds that program?

A: No, he’s doing that on his own. I’m just a supporter of his program. I think he’s a great coach and he’s going to do great things at Tennessee as the men’s coach.

Q: What kinds of things do you see differently now in the men’s program from what you saw previously before Coach Pearl arrived on campus?

A: I’ve been to see them play. They play a more up-and-down game now. They press a lot more. Other than that, I haven’t been to any of their practices.

Q: Other than the fact that you’re playing now, what do you think is the biggest difference in your own Lady Vols team now from what they were last season?

A: Well, I think we’re all older. We’ve all grown up a lot. Last year we were a really young team. I think that everybody has matured and we’re healthy now. We also communicate and know each other a lot better. Bringing in six new recruits, we really didn’t know each other, didn’t know how to talk to each other, didn’t know what buttons to push for different players, so that’s what’s different about this year. We know each other a lot better now.

Q: How does being 6’3” affect your social life? Was it something you were self-conscious about growing up? Do you think it helps or hurts when you go out socially?

A: (Laughing out loud) It doesn’t affect my social life much at all. My Mom and Dad always told me I should never be ashamed of how tall I was, because that was God’s gift. I never looked at being tall as being a drawback. I’ve always been tall all my life, so I’m used to people being amazed at my height.

Q: I’ve read some things about your older brothers. Tell me a little bit about them.

A: Oh, I’m so glad you asked that. I love talking about them. I have an older brother, Anthony, who is 30, who plays for the Tel Aviv team in Israel. They have been the Euro Champions for the last three years. This is his sixth season there. He went to Bradley University. He was drafted by the Nets in the first round of the NBA draft, was traded to Philadelphia, where he played two years, then went to Orlando for a year, played in the CBA for the Quad Cities Thunder, and then went overseas to play first in the Italian leagues and then in Israel. Anthony is married and he and his wife gave me a nephew, Alonzo, and they has another nephew for me on the way. My other brother (Marcus) is 27, and is in his second year of medical residency in interventional radiology at Johns Hopkins. He’s very smart. He is also married to another medical resident.

Q: Do you think you’re pretty smart, too? I hear that even though you're very modest about it, you've been on the honor roll every semester since you've been at UT, and that you were named to the SEC Freshman All-Academic team. What’s your GPA? Did you get ahead in academics while you couldn’t play last year?

A; I’m all right. I have a 3.5 GPA. I think I could have gotten further ahead than I did. I’m much more tired now. I go to do homework later than I did when I was just watching practice. But I’m doing real well now academically.

Q: With all of the money in professional sports now, considering all of your medical problems you’ve had in the past, do you ever think that would ever cause you to leave school early? You might be the first person to be offered a huge contract somewhere. Have you talked to others who have done that or haven’t done that?

A: No, I remember Coach Summitt telling me that the only way someone should leave is if they had a contract offered to them of a million dollars or more. But you know education is so important, and I realize these college years are some that you can never get back. I know that by all means NBA players that can go straight out of high school and make millions of dollars, no way should they wait and go to college. However, for me, these are years that I don’t want to miss. You learn how far a dollar goes (or doesn’t go) as a student. I wouldn’t want to pass up the college life. I’ve talked to LeBron James, who won the Naismith Award along with me when I was a junior and he was a senior, and he went straight to the league. If anybody said he shouldn’t have gone, they’re crazy. My brother was the # 1 ranked shooting guard in the nation his junior year and could have gone early. He chose to come back for his senior year, played USA basketball in the summer in between, and broke his fifth metatarsal and fell in the rankings for the draft because of all that.

Q: Since you have no sisters, do you think you were a tomboy growing up? Do you think your Mom tried to emphasize your femininity since you were the only girl? Did playing basketball with your brothers make you a whole lot better than you would have been had you not done that?

A: I was a tomboy, but at the same time, I was always a girl. I was a girly tomboy I guess, if that makes sense. I never wanted to wear dresses, but I always had my nails painted, played with dolls, and things like that. No, my Mom was the opposite and always tried to push me out there to go play basketball outside with my brothers, but I’d always come back inside to play with my dolls and my dishes, and get my brothers to come back inside and play house with me growing up. It made me a lot tougher to play ball with them. I only had them for a few years, though. They are 8 and 11 years older than me, so I was basically an only child by the time I was 10. They were so much older than me they were more like uncles than brothers to me, I guess.

Q: How is Knoxville, Tennessee, different from Naperville, Illinois, where you grew up? Do you like the Great Smoky Mountains here?

A: It’s not as different as I thought it would be. I’ve never even been to the mountains as a destination. I’ve only driven through them. I’m not really an outdoors person and I don’t go skiing. My knees won’t allow that.

Q: Do your knees still give you problems?

A: Sometimes they hurt with minor injuries in games and practice, but I get treatment and they get better. I’m blessed to have had (orthopedic surgeon) Dr. Youmans and (Assistant Athletics Director for Sports Medicine) Jenny Moshak to help me get back on my feet.

Q: What do you think your proudest accomplishment here at U.T. has been so far?

A: (Smiling and giggling) Getting through my freshman year. With everything that happened last year, just surviving and starting with a clean slate this year.

Q: Tell me a little bit about what you do with charity locally. What do you enjoy most?

A: As a team, we do different things with charities. I did the United Way campaign this past summer in August. We did a free throw shooting contest with some employees in which people donated money for every free throw made, and we raised a lot of money, so that was a fun thing.

Q: I read somewhere that you might want to be a broadcaster. Is that something you want to do? What is your major?

A: My major is going to be business finance or business marketing. I haven’t quite decided as yet. I was going to major in communications. I switched my major because we get a lot of media practice as it is. If I ever wanted to go into broadcasting or journalism, I feel like I’ve gotten good training as an athlete to do that. I think it would be fun.

Candace is obviously a good role model for young ladies who look up to Lady Vol athletes. That is one of the hallmarks of Summitt’s teams. They are not only good athletes on the court but good citizens off of it. Parker seemed laid back in enjoying talking about her life outside basketball. She most likely will be successful no matter what career path she chooses.

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