SEATTLE – She wasn’t sure why her uniform was in the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.
Which goes along with the kind of player she is: selfless.
No me-ism here. A team player all the way.
“Very giving,” is how her high school coach describes her. “She’s never been about the publicity.”
Which might explain why Kristen O’Neill didn’t bother to find out why her jersey from Meadowdale High School was on display at the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tenn.
Not that she wasn’t honored to have it there. She was – extremely.
But basketball to O’Neill is not about individual honors. And it never has been.
It’s about every player giving as much as she can, playing as hard as she can, for the betterment of the team.
And she doesn’t say that just to make herself look good in the paper.
She means it sincerely. And anyone who has seen her play can testify to her willingness to do whatever it takes to win on the court.
“She is what you want in a team basketball player,” said Mike Daugherty, the associate head coach at the University of Washington, where O’Neill is back for her third year as a starter for the Husky women.
She is back after missing an entire season with a stress fracture in her left foot, an injury she incurred in preseason workouts. The foot is not completely healed, which means it is still painful to play on, but she plays nonetheless, because the alternative is to sit, and she is not about to do that for another year.
The mental torment of watching a game rather than competing in it would outweigh the physical pain. She’d rather not talk about how much pain she endures, only says that it’s “bearable.”
“I could sit and rest some more,” she said, “but that didn’t help for a year and I wanted to be back on the court.”
The worst that can happen is that she could break the foot entirely, and she obviously is willing to take that risk. Like any athlete who is passionate about a sport, she blots out the pain when she gets on the court.
“What she’s doing, not everybody would do that,” Daugherty said. “I don’t think the other players even know how much she hurts.”
And O’Neill isn’t about to tell them.
Watching her in a recent game, you wouldn’t have known anything was wrong with her. She ran hard, she defended hard – she did what she does – she played hard.
It’s the only way she knows how to play. Otherwise, what’s the sense of putting on a uniform? she’d say.
And about that uniform that resided in the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. It went there because O’Neill earned All-American honors as a senior at Meadowdale. And it went there despite her objections. “She didn’t want me to send it,” Meadowdale coach Karen Blair said.
The uniform was on display for only a year, or until a new crop of All-Americans was honored. And O’Neill didn’t get to see it. “I’ve just heard that it was there,” she said.
It was duly deserved. She earned it not for her scoring or her rebounding or her passing or her defending. She earned it for all of them. She earned it because she is a player, a complete player.
When she graduated from Meadowdale, she left behind 15 career school records. “Defense is a big part of our program,” said Blair, a preeminent coach. “She still holds records for steals, blocked shots and deflections.”
Her zeal for shutting down the opponent’s best scorer is as great in college as it was in high school. “I take that as an honor,” O’Neill said. “I feel so great that my coaches have that kind of confidence in my defensive ability.”
Defense is about moving the feet. About keeping the hands up. And more than anything, it’s about having the desire to guard someone, which not many players want to do because it doesn’t get their names in the paper or their faces on TV or their jerseys in the Hall of Fame, for that matter. “When colleges were looking at her,” Blair said, “she was that rare breed who takes pride in being a stopper.”
She also won’t shirk from taking the big shot when things start getting dicey. In a game against Wisconsin-Milwaukee last weekend, O’Neill hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key after a 20-point Husky lead had dwindled to 12. Then she did it again less than a minute later.
Crunch time? “I love it,” she said. “What basketball player doesn’t?
“I love it when I can do anything to give back to my teammates. It’s great to sink the shot but I get just as much satisfaction dishing to get an assist or getting a steal or a defensive stop. Anything I can do is what pumps me up.”
She could have used a little pumping up herself 20 months ago. In April of 2003, O’Neill came down with a severe case of mononucleosis, forcing her to miss the spring quarter at the UW.
“I was extremely sick,” she said. “I was sleeping almost all day and I didn’t really start turning the corner until about July.
“Then I was able to be awake for more hours during the day and try to do a couple more things, but for the most part there wasn’t very much that I could do, and I didn’t start working out until August.”
She spent her 20th birthday in bed. “My parents brought me presents,” she said, “and I couldn’t even open them. I didn’t even want to.”
Once she got over the mono, she was anxious to start working out again and may have trained too hard because by October, she had suffered the foot injury. “It was a fourth-degree stress fracture,” she said, “and that means it would probably have been better if I’d broken it.”
Despite being on crutches, she attended every practice, went on every road trip. Though she couldn’t do anything to keep up her cardiovascular training, she did lift weights. And she tried to shoot with a boot on one foot, but made scuff marks on the gym floor. “The janitors said I couldn’t do that anymore,” she said, laughing.
Without basketball as a big part of her life, she got to spend more time with family and friends. “I would have loved to be on the court,” she said, “but sometimes you just have to accept the situation that you’re in and keep a positive attitude.
“Because of that, I’ve come out of it mentally stronger because being upset wasn’t going to help anything.”
And so, she is back. In the gym. With her team. Playing the game she loves.
Her foot hurts, but her heart is joyful.
“I truly feel so blessed to be out there,” she said. “I know what it feels to be playing one day and not be playing the next. “I’ve had many setbacks in the last year and a half. They’ve knocked me down but they haven’t kept me down. I really want to make the most of the last two years.”
Opponents are going to have their hands full with No. 33 of the Huskies.
Another jersey that may get some special treatment someday.
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