Monday, June 16, 2008

Player Profile: Tamera Young



Name: Tamera Young
Born: October 30, 1986 (21)
Place of Birth: Wilmington, North Carolina
Height: 6-2
Weight: unknown

High School: Laney High School, Wilmington, NC
College: James Madison University
College major: Kinesiology and sports management

Years Pro: None -- rookie year is 2008

Position: Guard

Kudos:

1) McDonald's All-American nominee in high school
2) All time scoring record in the Colonial Athletic Association
3) Led James Madison as a senior to the the third round of the 2008 Women's National Invitational Tournament
4) #8 pick in 2008 WNBA draft - also first player from James Madison ever to be picked in the WNBA draft

Nickname: T. Young, T. Tam (from college)

Profile: Once again, there's not much to tell about Tamera Young. This is a side effect of the coverage of women's basketball in general. If you're an NBA player, I can find out just about anything about you through the internet, down to your elementary school. If you're WNBA, unless you're Lisa Leslie winnowing out information will be difficult.

We do know that Young comes by her basketball pedigree honestly. Both her brother A. J. and older sister Nikia played basketball growing up. Sports runs in the family, her cousin Willie Williams was a cornerback in the National Football League from 1993 to 2005. You might have also heard of Laney High School. There's someone else who graduated from Laney who might be better known as a basketball player -- last name of "Jordan".

Each of the two sisters would play AAU ball until the cost would force one of the two Young girls to give up. Nikia bowed out, and Tamera would be allowed to play under the tight finances.

We know that she likes fashion. We know that she's a self-proclaimed "computer freak". Aside from that, we also know a few minor facts from a WNBA article about Young's being drafted to play for the Dream.

Favorite Book: "B-More Careful." B-More Careful belongs to a genre called "street lit", or "ghetto lit", one of several books written about life growing up black in a poor, urban environment. Urbanbooksource.com has the book listed as the second best street lit novel of all time.

Favorite Movie: "Love and Basketball". A story of a young boy and girl, both good at basketball, both growing up together, both good enough to be in the pros. Even though the young man becomes an NBA star and the young woman has to go to Europe (this story takes place before the WNBA), a romance develops between the two main characters.

Favorite Album: "Mario's new album that just came out." (Probably "Go!" by Mario, an R&B/pop singer.)

Favorite TV show: "The Parkers." A UPN program about a mother and daughter who end up going to college together. Nominated for numerous NAACP Image awards.

Favorite luxury item: "My cell phone." (No information there. Nokia? iPhone?)

Aside from the trivia above, what else we can find out about Young will have to be found by mining her hometown newspapers. She wears #23, which was Jordan's number of course. It looks like Young has taste, if nothing else. Of course, the Dream will be the beneficiary of not only her taste, but her basketball skills.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the info on Tamera. The Dream need to do a better job of this kind of thing. The Dream staff is young and does not have a ton of experience, so they've got some growing pains all around. Things should get better. GO DREAM!

Anonymous said...

PS RE: "Love and Basketball"--Nnamaka, as she mentioned in the last game's program, really does resemble Sanaa Lathan, the star of that movie (which I really like, too).

Anonymous said...

Oddly enough, I've never seen "Love and Basketball". I suppose I don't have an excuse not to, anymore!

Anonymous said...

To get more info on Tamera you may want to try looking up info on her from her hometownor where she played ball. www.starnewsonline.com Wilmington Newspaper

www.dnronline.com Harrisonburg Newspaper

www.caazone.com CAA Messaging Boards
by the way Tamera has a few nicknames from college: T. Young, T, Tam,
Bio: She's the youngest of 3 older brother and sister. Started playing ball late. She didn't play basketball until the age of 8 or 9.
"She grew up around basketball in Wilmington. Her older brother, A.J., and older sister, Nikia, both played hoops in high school. (Neither played in college.)

Tamera and Nikia both played AAU ball until their mother, Lynda, decided she could only afford for one to keep it up. So, Nikia stepped down.

"She realized Tamera loved it more," Lynda Nichols-Brown remembered from her Wilmington home this week."
"Young's mother keeps all her trophies and accolades in the computer room of their Wilmington home. But during the season, she spends nearly as much time in Harrisonburg. Nichols-Brown makes the 6½-hour drive from Wilmington for almost all the Dukes' home games, taking personal days from her human relations job.

As for her daughter? When she's not notching school records, Young is watching movies or is plopped in front of her computer, buying shoes and clothes from Gap, Express, Eastbay, Ebay or Finish Line.

"I'm a computer freak," she said with her trademark big-toothed grin.

In fact, she barely watches TV. Brooks and her brother scold her for not catching enough basketball.

"Because I want her to be a student of the game," Brooks said. "She knows what she knows by coming out here and playing. I used to tell her probably half of what I know is what I watch. ...

"I'll call her up and say, ‘OK, Tennessee is playing UConn. Are you watching?' ... I tell her all the time she needs to look at the WNBA stuff and make sure she knows who's coaching who, what team has what. Meredith knew all that stuff."


From TV To Hoops Star Posted 2008-03-20

By Brent Johnson

Anonymous said...

Anonymous, thanks for the extra info. I've incorporated some of it into the profile.