At Pinnacle, Stepping Away From Basketball

JERÉ LONGMAN

NEWARK, Del. -- Students kept filing into the tiny hideaway gym at the University of Delaware, but most seemed interested in swimming and the fitness center, not volleyball. Only 150 or so fans attended Wednesday's match, 200 tops, family and friends tucked into a small set of bleachers.
Elena Delle Donne, a 6-foot-5 middle hitter, took her position near the net and played the way a novice does, dominating at some moments, uncertain at others. She spiked the ball ferociously to end the suspense in a three-set victory over Villanova, but it remained jarring even for her father to see her in the tights and kneepads of volleyball instead of the flowing shorts of basketball.

"If Tom Brady was your son, you would really enjoy that he was a darn good Ping-Pong player, but you'd feel like, Why's he playing Ping-Pong?" Ernie Delle Donne, a real estate developer, said, referring to the New England quarterback.

Only months ago, Elena Delle Donne was the nation's top female high school basketball recruit, a signee with the University of Connecticut, an expected central figure in what many predict will be the Huskies' sixth national title season in 2008-9. After two days of classes last June, though, Delle Donne acknowledged what few athletes of her visibility have ever acknowledged publicly -- she was burned out on basketball at 18

Posted by Jeff Henriques at October 19, 2008 7:47 PM
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