Sheryl Swoopes, a player for the Seattle Storm WNBA team, will be assisting with coaching duties during the current 2009-2010 Mercer Island High School girls basketball season.
Swoopes, who attended Texas Tech, has played basketball professionally for 11 years, joining the Storm in 2008 as a guard. She won an NCAA woman’s basketball championship in 1993 with the Texas Tech Lady Raiders, and has three Olympic gold medals in basketball from the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games.
She joined the WNBA in it’s first season, playing with the Houston Comets, and remained with the Comets until 2007. She has been apart of four WNBA champion teams and earned the WNBA MVP award three times in her career.
This season at Mercer Island Swoopes will be taking on some of the sideline coaching duties during the Islanders games while MIHS girls head coach Jamie Prescott is on maternity leave.
Assistant coach Beth Christofferson said Monday afternoon prior to practice that Swoopes has been great, really helping the girls and that she just wants to make the team better.
See this week’s issue of the Reporter for the MIHS winter sports previews and watch for continued coverage of the girls basketball team, as well as all other sports on Mercer Island!