Tamika Catchings

Early life and college career

Catchings was born in New Jersey and lived in Italy for a year while her father played professionally. She attended Adlai E. Stevenson High School and Duncanville High School, earning WBCA All-American honors. She is the first player at any level to be credited with a quintuple-double. At the University of Tennessee, she was part of the undefeated 1997–98 national championship team and won multiple national player of the year awards in 2000.

WNBA career

Catchings was drafted third overall by the Indiana Fever in 2001 but missed the season due to an ACL injury. She returned in 2002, averaging 18.6 points per game and winning Rookie of the Year. In a game against the Minnesota Lynx, she tied the WNBA record with nine steals. Her best scoring season came in 2003, when she averaged a career-high 19.7 points per game.

She scored her 2,000th point in 2005, becoming the fourth fastest to reach that milestone, and is the fastest to 1,000 rebounds, 400 assists, and 300 steals. She was named Defensive Player of the Year in 2005, 2006, 2009, 2010, and 2012. In 2006, she was the leading vote-getter for the All-Star Game but sat out due to a foot injury. The Fever traded for Katie Douglas in 2008, but the team was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs that year.

USA Basketball

Catchings was named to the USA Basketball Women's Junior National Team in 1996, winning a silver medal at the Junior World Championship. In 1997, she helped the U19 team win gold at the FIBA Junior World Championship, averaging 13.2 points and 7.2 rebounds per game.

She played for the US at the 1998 William Jones Cup, where the team won gold. She won a gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics. She was invited to the USA Basketball Women's National Team training camp in 2009, which typically selects players for the 2010 FIBA World Championship and 2012 Olympics.

Personal life

Tamika Catchings is the daughter of former NBA player Harvey Catchings. Her sister Tauja played college basketball at Illinois and later in the WNBA. Catchings has a hearing impairment; she lost her hearing aids in third grade and did not wear them again until Pat Summitt urged her to at Tennessee.

She received the Dawn Staley Community Leadership Award in 2008. In 2016, she married Parnell Smith, a former University at Buffalo basketball player. A Christian, she became an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority in 2023.

Did You Know?

• Catchings is the first player at any level in history to be officially credited with scoring a quintuple-double (25 points, 18 rebounds, 11 assists, 10 steals and 10 blocks).
• She tied a then WNBA record with 9 steals in a regular season game against the Minnesota Lynx during her rookie season.
• Catchings became the WNBA's all-time leading playoff scorer on August 23, 2014, surpassing Lisa Leslie's 908 career playoff points.