SEATTLE — It’s become a rather odd tradition at KeyArena in recent weeks.
Late in a Seattle Storm game, head coach Brian Agler looks to his left and summons Kristen O’Neill from the end of his bench.
O’Neill, a Meadowdale High School and University of Washington graduate, then checks into the game with only a few minutes on the clock, and receives a scattered standing ovation as she enters for mop-up duty.
“She’s a popular player, that’s all I can say,” Agler says when asked about the ovations O’Neill receives both in pregame introductions and when she enters games in the fourth quarter.
After graduating from Washington in 2006, O’Neill went undrafted and ended up playing in Spain and Ireland. This spring, the Storm brought the 6-foot-1 guard in for a tryout, but cut her just before the start of the regular season.
Rather than return to Europe or seek playing options elsewhere, the former Gatorade State Player of the Year stayed in Seattle on the Storm’s practice squad. At the beginning of this month, she was rewarded for sticking around with a seven-day contract. Earlier this week, she was signed to a second seven-day contract, extending her WNBA career for at least another week.
“It was an incredible feeling,” O’Neill said of getting signed. “To play in the exhibition games, and then a few days later not make the official roster was pretty tough, but I just stuck with it. So to have gotten seven days for me was just another opportunity to get back out here and play in games, and it’s been so much fun.”
Part of the fun has been achieving a childhood goal in front of friends and family. Basketball always has been a hometown game for O’Neill — minus the stops in Europe of course. From Meadowdale, where she won a state title as a junior, to Washington, and now back to Seattle with the Storm, O’Neill has built a following of local basketball fans.
Those fans remember O’Neill from her college and high school days, and are now showing their appreciation when she takes the court at KeyArena.
“Our hometown fans are incredible,” she said. “It’s been a lot of fun playing in Seattle throughout my days at UW and now this. It’s hard to express in words, but it means a lot to me. … This is my dream. This is what I’ve wanted since I was little, so to see them really get behind me and believe in that too has meant a lot to me.”
As reserves were announced before Seattle’s Thursday afternoon game against Phoenix, O’Neill’s name was greeted with the type of cheers you would expect for Sue Bird, Lauren Jackson or Sheryl Swoopes, not a recently signed reserve guard who has played 13 minutes in four games and is yet to record her first WNBA points. With 55 second remaining in the game, O’Neill was finally summoned from the bench, and again the crowd went wild.
“Our fans really appreciate her, they’ve seen her grow up,” Bird said. “A lot of people saw her in high school and definitely in college, and now to see her play for the Storm, I’m sure it’s exciting for them as well. She worked really hard to have this shot, and I know she hasn’t gotten the minutes, but she’s making the most of it, she’s doing a good job. It is nice for her, she worked really hard to get here.”
O’Neill knows that the strange tradition of loud ovations for the last player off the bench might not last past Saturday night’s game against Los Angeles. She is on her second seven-day contract, and by league rules the Storm must sign her for the rest of the season or release her once this contract expires on the July 15.
“I know that nothing is guaranteed, so I’m really trying to live in the moment and enjoy every second of it,” O’Neill said.
If O’Neill isn’t signed, she can return to the practice squad or pursue other options altogether. For now, however, she says she’s not thinking about that possibility, but instead enjoying every moment of her new WNBA career.
Agler, who is also the team’s director of player personnel, said there is “strong possibility” that O’Neill could be signed for the rest of the season. He and the Storm players praise O’Neill for her work ethic and the energy she brings to the team.
“Kristen just brings a positive energy to the team, and the more you have of that the better,” he said. “You want everybody to bring that, but she definitely brings that, and that’s why she’s gotten another opportunity.”
No matter what happens next week, O’Neill said that this time in the WNBA has been a dream come true. O’Neill was in middle school when the WNBA launched 11 years ago. It was then that her goals shifted from playing in college to playing in college and the WNBA. She remembers looking up to early stars in the league such as Swoopes, a three-time league MVP. Now, O’Neill shares a locker room with the likes of Swoopes, Bird, Jackson and Yolanda Griffith.
O’Neill has especially looked up to Swoopes since joining the Storm.
“She’s actually the first person I met,” O’Neill said. “I did a pre-workout before camp started and she was in town. She was the very first person I met, and right away she put me at ease, and since then we’ve gotten to know each other and built a friendship. She’s taken me under her wing and given me so much encouragement, and I’m thankful for that.”
Storm fans, on the other hand, are thankful for having a home-grown talent to cheer on, no matter what her role on the team.
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