The mantra, “I wasn’t supposed to be here,” is a cliché uttered by professional athletes who approach their sport’s heights, asserted as the ultimate testament to their hard work.
For Becky Hammon, who will be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame on Saturday afternoon, the mantra rings true. As Hammon said after leading the Las Vegas Aces to the 2022 WNBA title, “My journey’s not a mistake. Every hard thing I’ve gone through has built something in me that I’ve needed down the road.”
Hammon’s now a titan in the women’s game. Yet in 1999, as she completed her collegiate career at Colorado State, she was anything but.
Hammon went from undrafted to undeniable
At 5-foot-6 with a baby face and bobbing, blonde ponytail, Hammon did not look like a WNBA player to the league’s talent evaluators. Her college coach described her as an “average white girl” when he first saw her. So despite earning All-American honors as a senior, she went undrafted, instead joining the New York Liberty’s training camp as one of 20 invitees.
Hammon quickly defied expectations and impressed some of the Liberty’s most important stakeholders — starting guards Teresa Weatherspoon (herself a Hall of Famer) and Vickie Johnson. According to Sports Illustrated,…
