Mystics’ Delle Donne joins author ranks
Even for a program such as Connecticut, Elena Delle Donne was a big deal. The Huskies routinely bring in top classes, but by 2008 Delle Donne had become one of the most talked-about high school girls basketball players in history, destined for multiple titles with the nation’s most elite program.
Then, after only a short stay on campus the summer before her freshman season, she left.
Her decision to transfer to the University of Delaware is still scrutinized nearly 10 years — and one WNBA MVP award and Olympic gold medal — later.
Now she’s hoping to pass on the life lessons she learned then — and from the rest of her career (so far) — in two new books: her memoir, My Shot, and the first in a series of children’s books, Elle
of the Ball. Delle Donne wants both books, which are written with a collaborator and will be released by Simon and Schuster in March 2018, to be accessible to children and teenagers who might be struggling with the same feelings she had when she was younger.
“It’s been a couple of years in my career, and I feel like at this point I’m comfortable with who I am, where I am,” Delle Donne said. “A lot of lessons I’ve learned along the way, and I love kids, so I definitely wanted these first books to be geared towards a younger age group and just wanted to share some life lessons. Also just give a little bit of fun reading.”
Among those life lessons, she said, are those she learned in the years after her departure from UConn, when long-simmering feelings of burnout culminated in an abrupt — but necessary — break from the sport before re- turning to first play volleyball and then a year later basketball at Delaware. She said she began feeling burned out long before she stepped on campus in Storrs, Conn., and in her book shares the emotions she was feeling in the years leading up to that famous departure.
“It was definitely a chance to tell it in my own way and in my own words, even going through the writing process of it all. At some points it’s kind of emotional to have to relive moments that were tough, especially the whole Connecticut turmoil, and going through that I felt like I had to relive those emotions in order to retell it the way I was experiencing it in that time,” she said. “So I would say that one of the hardest parts of the book was getting through that. Burnout was a huge part of the book, and I think — even if you’re not an athlete — there’s things in life you feel like you’re burning out in and I tell it from my perspective and how I got through it and hope that can help others.”
There are other life lessons in the books that Delle Donne hopes can appeal to kids, and grown-ups, across different audiences. Which means she hopes that both boys and girls take away something from the books. In Elle of the Ball, a book about a middle school basketball player, there’s a boy character, too.
“So if they don’t relate to my character, hopefully they can relate to another one, and that was very important to me,” she said.
Delle Donne also hopes to offer some of what she learned about perseverance, having the right people to support you and tales about life being so tall (Delle Donne is 6-5).
“It took me until college to really be comfortable,” she said. “Obviously, basketball helped a lot, but I would say college is when I finally loved my height and embraced it.”
As for feeling comfortable with herself as a whole? It is, as for any of us, an ongoing process, she said.
“But I’m in a great place now and I feel like I’ve really learned so much over the years. This was a great time to reflect and share some lessons.”