Long before President Barack Obama and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver were sending their congratulations, Becky Hammon’s basketball journey began at the age of 3 on her driveway.
She grew up playing against her older brother Matt and his friends. The boys would knock her down sometimes, but she’d get back up.
Hammon became South Dakota’s player of the year, but at 5-foot-6, most colleges passed on her. She brushed herself off and wound up at Colorado State, where she became an All-American.
At the 1999 WNBA draft, Hammon’s name wasn’t one of the 48 called. She was one of 20 training camp invitees for the New York Liberty, where teammates eventually asked to “keep that little white girl who keeps getting up when we knock her down.