Val Whiting

Valerie Olivia Whiting (born April 9, 1972) (now named Val Raymond) is a former professional basketball player.

Early life

Valeria Olivia Whiting was born on April 9, 1972 in South Orange, New Jersey. She grew up in East Orange, New Jersey, and eventually moved to Wilmington, Delaware during the 80's. By middle school she was almost six feet tall and she even skipped the fourth grade. Being tall, awkward, and shy, she was subject to bullying. In an effort to fit in, she tried out for the middle school cheer squad but didn't make the cut. She says, "Boys only seemed to like the girls that were popular and cheerleaders, so I thought that if I was popular, the bullying would go away." She went into basketball after being cut from the cheerleading team. Despite her father playing college basketball, and her mother being offered a scholarship to play, they never mentioned the sport to her, and she wasn't interested in the sport until her math teacher suggested that she tryout for her middle school team. In the beginning, she found basketball extremely confusing, even scoring for the wrong team once in a game. But she was undeterred by these minor setbacks. On weekends, as a requirement of her father, she would have 6 am workouts to work on her game, honing her skills, which she says she didn't enjoy. She played streetball every weekend against grown men, the challenging situation helping her improve and develop grit. In one incident, she knocked down an adult man off of a rebound during a pick up game. Frustrated and angry, he said, "That's not a girl, that's a man." Val recalls being extremely hurt by this remark, as she was only 13 years old, and was still trying to figure out what it meant to be female and an athlete.

Basketball career

High School

Val Whiting didn't begin to love the sport until tenth grade, which was also when she received her first college recruitment letter from Princeton. That moment was when she realized that she could play college basketball. Motivated, she pushed herself harder, attending multiple exposure camps. After these camps, the letters poured in as she gained the interest of many high level college basketball programs. Years later, one assistant coach even said that she would never be a great basketball player, only because of assumptions that she made of her during a high school tryout at Ursuline Academy. She says, "I'm glad that I didn't hear that then, because at that point I was fragile, and it would've demotivated me. This happened during my freshman, and it was my first time being seen." Her senior year, she averaged 30 points a game and 15 rebounds. Through her high school season she won four state championships, was a 3 time All-State Player, and a 2 time All-American. In addition, she was player of the year from her sophomore to senior season. In 1984, Whiting attended the Olympic Trials, to gain exposure to see what competition was like at the elite level. As the youngest player she says "It was difficult and it was out of my league." She quotes, "I got my butt kicked". At the Olympic Trial was where she first caught the attention of Stanford Women's Basketball coaching legend, Tara Vanderveer. Whiting was a heavily recruited athlete, receiving letters from nearly every program in America, including the most elite. She was eventually awarded a full scholarship to Stanford University.

College

Whiting won two NCAA championships and went to the Final Four three years. At the end of her last year, she graduate as the school's second all-time leading scorer and all-time leader in rebounds and blocks.

Awards and honors

College

• Stanford Athletic Hall of Fame (inducted in 2000)
• In 2010, she was named one of the Top 25 NCAA Players of the Past 25 years.
• Two-time Kodak All-American
• Pac-10 Player of the Year (1992–93)
• All-Pac-10 Team (1992 and 1993)

American Basketball League

• All-Star
• All-ABL Selection

Delaware

• The Hall of Fame of Delaware Women
• The Delaware Basketball Hall of Fame
• Delaware Afro-American Sports Hall of Fame
• Delaware Sports Hall of Fame.

International play

• Was named to USA Basketball Pan-American Games Team in 1995^[1]

Personal life

Raymond earned a BS in Biological Sciences from Stanford.^[2] She deferred her acceptance to University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine due to her love of basketball. She played overseas, is a mother and wife, and became a business owner after basketball.^[3]

References