More about Candice Wiggins

Candice Wiggins is only 21, but the former Stanford guard has already turned heads at every level in her basketball career.

A story in the Sports section of Friday's Star Tribune tells her story, but there is so much more.

Below are four more short tales about Wiggins, followed by quotes from her and about her, from people who know her well.

A rough start

Candice Wiggins was not always good at basketball. At 6, she was terrible.

She begged her mother to play, but her first season in a recreational league she was lucky to score a basket each game.

"I was just terrible," Wiggins said. "They didn't pass me the ball. I was the kind of player they said, 'Just stand over there and don't mess up.' "

Her breakthrough season came her second year in the rec league. "I was on the purple team with purple shirts," Wiggins said. "... It was the first game of the season and everybody was like, 'Oh, my gosh.' I would just run, go in the passing lanes, get the ball and shoot layups. That was the first time I ever felt success. It was like, 'Whoa, I am really good.'

"At that moment it became innate inside of me. Like something I wanted to do."

Wiggins also tried a lot of other sports growing up, including softball briefly in eighth grade.

"I would just steal bases," she said. "The hardest part was getting on first base. Then I would try to steal all the bases."

But she soon quit. "I got hit like six times with the ball," Wiggins said. "And I was like, 'No. They can throw the ball and hit me and that's OK? Ugh, ugh.' It hurt and I didn't want to be sore the whole week at basketball practice."

Meeting Seimone

Candice Wiggins met Lynx teammate Seimone Augustus for the first time when their teams played in an NCAA region final in 2006.

Wiggins was a sophomore at Stanford, Augustus a senior at Louisiana State.

The game came down to the last play.

"We were down by two points and I had the ball," Wiggins said. "We were running a play and we had our shooter in the corner. I am at the top and Seimone is guarding the shooter."

Wiggins decided to penetrate. "So I get past the first defender and I am about to go up, but then I pass it out because Seimone leaves [our shooter]."

Trouble is, Augustus is now in the lane.

"I think she slid in late because I didn't see her. She slides in and takes the charge. And they call an offensive foul [on me]."

To make matters worse, Stanford's player in the corner makes a three-pointer.

"So if [the referees] don't call anything, we go to the Final Four," Wiggins said, "but they call a charge."

It's a play Wiggins still remembers well.

The bet

Wiggins made a quick adjustment to college basketball as a freshman.

"The first day of practice, she had the intensity of people I have worked with on Olympic teams," Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said. "I loved coaching Candice. She brings out the best in her teammates."

Empirical evidence of that last statement came during a practice in Wiggins' junior season. VanDerveer got upset one day by what she was seeing and made a bet with her assistants.

Give me Wiggins and any four players, you take the other starters and anybody else, the head coach said.

The stakes were a case of Diet Coke, VanDerveer's beverage of choice. Soon she was well-stocked.

The mistake

Don Zierden thought it was a teaching moment in the Lynx's first exhibition game against Connecticut. Wiggins had made a defensive mistake, leaving her player unguarded, which led to a basket.

Zierden was not happy and, during a free throw, he called Wiggins over to the Lynx bench.

"She got five feet away from me and said, 'Coach, I know what I did. I will not make that mistake again,'" Zierden said. "How can you not love that [attitude] as a coach?"

Wiggins also scored 18 points against the Sun.

Eleven quotes about No. 11

1. Former Stanford teammate Susan King Borchardt, a star at Holy Angels in high school, roomed on the road with Wiggins for one season. Borchardt was a fifth-year senior, Wiggins a freshman.

"We became good friends and that year was the best experience I had at Stanford," Borchardt said. "She was the most competitive person I ever met and, at the same time, the best teammate. She would rather win than score 50 and lose.

"From the minute she was on campus, she raised the intensity level of play. And when she was competing, she was having so much fun."

2. VanDerveer: "[Wiggins] made it OK for a great player to like their coach. We did not have daily battles. Other coaches have asked me how you do that. That's Candice. I do not know how to teach that."

3. Lynx coach Don Zierden on whether Wiggins will start: "One thing we really liked in the Connecticut exhibition game is bringing her off the bench. That gave us a great spark of energy."

Wiggins scored a game-high 18 points. Scoring from her was expected. "She is quicker than I thought she was," Zierden said, "and she is an even nicer kid than I thought she was."

4. Marlon Wells, the coach of an all-boys all-star team called the San Diego Rising Stars on which Wiggins played when she was around 11 and 12: "She was a gym rat. She just wanted it. She was athletic and just as quick as anyone around. She worked on her game and was willing to learn, to ask questions.

"She had the will to get better every practice. And she took a leadership role. 'Come on guys, let's go get them,' she would say. And when Candice made a three-pointer, she would smack one of the boys on the butt, like they made the shot. She was always positive."

5. Lynx teammate Lindsey Harding on Wiggins: "As a person, she is a sweetheart. And, as a player, she is a competitor. She always wants to get better and she works extremely hard. Coming here to the Lynx, all her hard work is going to rub off on other people and might make us better.

"She is good people, she truly cares. She loves her teammates and I think that is the biggest thing."

6. Teammate Seimone Augustus on what Wiggins brings to the Lynx: "The energy, the intensity, the do-whatever-it-takes attitude. That's what we need. She will be a force on the offensive end to help with the scoring load but also on the defensive end, she gets after it."

7. A grizzled reporter made the error of asking Lynx forward Charde Houston, who also played high school basketball in the San Diego area, if Wiggins was kind of a legend there: "Kind of a legend is an understatement. She was a three-time San Diego player of the year, Miss Basketball in California. She left her mark. She is known as one of the greatest players that ever came through San Diego. And she is a great person to be around."

8. Angela Wiggins on the impact of her late husband, Alan, on Candy [the name she calls Candice]: "It's sad with Alan. He is like a ghost following her. She will always be in his footsteps. If she did not have a famous dad, she could just be Candy Wiggins."

9. Cassandra Wiggins, 26, her older sister: "She has that little spark that draws everybody in. She lights up a room. My father was like a catalyst for the Padres, and that's what [Candice] is for her teams. She comes out and steals the ball."

10. Terri Bamford, her high school coach: "I never had to get on her. I never had to tell her to play hard or to listen to what I was saying. She always tried."

11. Assistant Lynx coach Ed Prohofsky: "I had no idea she was as quick as she is."

Five Wiggins' quotes

1. On the Lynx: "I don't know how the team has been in the past, but I just know the pieces are here now. Maybe this is just the excitement of the preseason, but I just really feel this is going to be a good year."

2. On teammate Seimone Augustus: "I played with her briefly in USA basketball. It is cool now to get to know her in person off the court and just see how she is and how extremely silly she is all the time."

3. Her mother, brother and sister call her Candy, but her father insisted her legal name be Candice: "I'm glad he did. I could not stand being called Candy."

4. Asked if she ever surprises herself: "There are times at Stanford when I would make a shot. And I would have a zero percent clue why that shot went in. But it did. It was almost like telekinesis. That is really what it felt like.

"When you shoot enough, I guess they just start going in."

5. Wiggins on when she started dreaming about playing in the WNBA: "In the inaugural season (1997), I said, 'I am going to be a WNBA player. I was 10 and I was just so excited because I can't wait until I am the right age."

Did you know: Candice amazed her older siblings, Cassandra and Alan Jr., by solving the Rubik's Cube at age 4.