Jackie Stiles Biography

Jackie Stiles was a basketball star at Southwest Missouri State, where she twice led the NCAA in scoring (2000 and 2001) and won the 2001 Wade Trophy as the nation’s best college player. She led the Lady Bears to the Final Four of the 2001 NCAA tournament, gaining national attention as a small-town girl playing for a small-college team. (She also had been a high school basketball and track star in Claflin, Kansas.) After college she joined the Portland Fire of the WNBA, and was named the league’s rookie of the year in 2001; when the Fire folded, she joined the Los Angeles Sparks in 2002, but didn’t play due to injuries. Known less for her size and more for her persistent training regimen of making 1000 shots per day, Stiles’s pro career was cut short by injuries. After a brief period playing in different leagues (including overseas), she retired for good in 2006.