Candace Parker is a WNBA Champion, along with winning back-to-back NCAA championships with the Lady Vols in 2007 and 2008, and winning 2 Gold Medals in 2008 and then in 2012 she became an Olympic medalist. While she has always wanted to be in a video game, she will now be on the cover of the new game 2K22, which is over the top of what she expected. Along with making her the first woman ever to be the cover athlete.
Before becoming an Olympic medalist, she had many achievements that catapulted her to that point. As a high schooler in Naperville Central High School in Illinois, she led her team to the state championship in 2003 and 2004. She also participated in a slam dunk contest at the McDonald’s All-American Games in 2004. She won that contest and then became the first woman to ever win the contest. While also beating multiple future NBA stars like J.R. Smith, Rudy Gay, and Josh Smith. After leading her team to a two year back to back AA Class state title in high school, she also became the first female in the state of Illinois to dunk a basketball in a game. She then went to college at the University of Tennessee and started her career. She played for the Tennessee Lady Vols during 2005-2006. In the first year, she was then named SEC Rookie of the year. Candace is the first woman to dunk in an NCAA game, and the first woman to dunk twice in a single NCAA game.
Many can say that as a player she had more accomplishments with very few obstacles. Yet in her personal life she has had to deal with many changes. She was first happily married to Shelden Williams for 8 years and had her daughter Lailaa however In 2016, Candace has had the stress of divorcing her husband. Shortly there after, she came out as lesbian only a year later and married her now wife, Anna Petrakova. They just recently had their first child together, and have been happily married for over 2 years now while dealing with the struggles of being an African American woman, an MVP in the WNBA, and a mother. She is a role model for future women basketball players who strive to be like her. With being so great she’s had injuries to her ankle twice that have set her team down in a continuous loss. She has injured the same ankle twice, because of that it has made the injury more severe, and has been out for eight games.
Posted by : LaydieFluent
Written by: Angelina Portes (2021 Spring Intern)
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