By Dave Krider
MaxPreps.com
"My first reaction was `This kid was born to play the sport,' '' John Noonan told MaxPreps while describing his first look at second grade basketball player Elena Delle Donne. "I was throwing her bad passes, etc. (on purpose) and she handled it all. After about 45 minutes she snuck up behind me, tugged on my shirt and asked if it was all right to get a drink of water. I had gotten caught up because she made things look so easy."
Today Delle Donne is a 6-foot-5 senior at Ursuline Academy, a small all-girls school in Wilmington, Del., and a heavy favorite to claim National Player of the Year honors.
Noonan, a physical therapist who has been Delle Donne's personal trainer since that first day, calls her "a humble kid. She is intelligent and a beautiful young lady. I am just proud (to know her)."
Delle Donne's stature in Delaware long ago reached legendary proportions and it has stretched across the country as Ursuline expanded its schedule.
The young superstar's impact is best illustrated by several incidents recalled by her coaches.
- Delle Donne sparked the Raiders to a state championship as a mere eighth grader. The next year, assistant coach Peg Desendorf was following her down a narrow hallway packed with students as they headed for the locker room to prepare for a game.
"It was like a parting of the Red Sea," Desendorf described, still somewhat in awe. "People were touching her arm. She turned and asked, `What is going on?' (I think) it was out of curiosity, respect and wonderment."
- Fast forward to her junior year. The Raiders were two minutes from tip-off at Council Rock North (Pa.) when officials asked to delay the game for 20 minutes because so many people still were waiting in line to buy tickets.
"Girls games usually draw 300 to 400 people," Ursuline head coach Fran Burbidge noted. "They had 1,500 that night. After the game they asked if they could get autographs. Elena signed for 45 minutes. It went from little kids, to parents, to grandparents. Also high school boys wanted their pictures taken with her.
"She walks down a mall and not only young kids but adults come up to her and want her autograph. She's been under scrutiny for so long, you'd expect her to have some type of selfishness. She is such a nice kid and totally unselfish in giving her time.
"This is something unique and we're embracing it."
Delle Donne's lofty reputation has been earned through countless hours of hard work and a lifetime dedicated to basketball. She also has the statistical feats to back it up.
- As a sophomore she set a national record by sinking an amazing 80 consecutive free throws.
- She needs only 33 points to become the all-time career scoring leader in Delaware.
- She poured in 50 points as a sophomore in the state-title game.
- She has won three state championships and hopes to bow out with No. 4 this season.
- She also has starred on three national AAU championship teams (ages 12-14-15) with Fencor from Fort Washington, Pa., and earned MVP honors at the prestigious Boo Williams Invitational with the champion Philly Comets. When she was 15, she exploded for 45 points in a tournament game against the Tulsa (Okla.) Swoosh.
Delle Donne always has been tall and was born with terrific hand-eye coordination. She inherited her height from her father, Ernie, who played basketball at Columbia University and stands 6-6, and her mother, Joan, who is 6-2.
At age four, she "picked up a basketball and never wanted to put it down," she said. She was greatly influenced by her older brother Gene (now age 20), who provided early competition, and her father, who brilliantly taught her the game's fundamentals.
She began playing organized basketball at the local YMCA as a five-year-old. "My dad always wanted me to be a guard," she explained. "He knew I was going to be tall, but being a tall guard was awesome. It always kind of came easy to me."
Ernie Delle Donne wisely started his young daughter on a five-foot basket, then gradually moved the height up until she was ready for a standard 10-foot basket at the still-tender age of eight. "I never changed my form just to get the ball to the hoop," she pointed out.
Surprisingly, Ernie says he "never dreamed of my kids playing sports. I just wanted them to pursue something hard (100 percent in whatever they did)."
Elena amazed her parents by taking the training wheels off her bicycle at around age four and teaching herself to ride, but they first realized her potential as an athlete later that year when she asked to play whiffle ball with Gene and his friends. Ernie was pitching and he threw her a slow one. "She almost takes my head off," he noted. "By the end of the day I was throwing harder to her than to the boys and she batted a thousand."
As a third grader, Elena was shown how to juggle by her gym class teacher. "Five minutes later," Ernie said, "she was juggling three balls perfectly. She has the ability to emulate what she sees. She just has God-given abilities. She makes (everyone) look like a heck of a good teacher," he laughed.
As she progressed, Delle Donne improved greatly by playing against Gene and his buddies. "They made me tough," she admitted. "They didn't go easy, because they didn't want Gene's little sister to beat them," she laughed.
Even today, she plays high school and college boys one-on-one. "It helps me get quicker and stronger," she explained. "It takes a lot of creativity to get by them." She also has back-yard sessions with her father, who constantly checks her shooting form to be sure she doesn't develop flaws in the USA's sweetest jump shot.
During her last three years at Ursuline, she has shot between 52 and 60 percent from the field and between 82 and 94 percent from the free throw line.
Asked about her phenomenal outside shooting, Delle Donne humbly concedes, "It's always my dad. I give him full credit." Her sizzling free throw percentage? "Once again, it's my dad," she said. "My foul shot is extremely simple, so it's kind of hard to mess it up," she laughed. "It's three dribbles. I then put my arm up in an `L" shape. All I do then is lift and flick."
Desendorf got her first look at the young phenom in a seventh grade CYO game. "She just totally dominated that game," the veteran coach pointed out. "She literally was head and shoulders above everybody else. I was wowed! She has a lot of inner drive and you could see that when she was young. She works all the time. I'm not sure she has taken a lot of time off."
Not eligible for varsity basketball until eighth grade, Delle Donne seized her first opportunity and was an immediate starter. She averaged a surprising 27.2 points as the Raiders posted a 22-4 record and won their first of three consecutive state titles.
In ninth grade she averaged an even 28 points and the Raiders won it all with a sparkling 25-1 record. They also became the first Delaware girls team ever to win the prestigious Diamond State Classic.
The young sharpshooter broke the national free throw record as a sophomore during the nation's most prestigious tournament, the Nike Tournament of Champions in Phoenix, Ariz. "It was awesome, but mentally tough at 76 (straight)," she conceded. "I needed four more (to hit 80 in a row) and it was really nerve wracking."
Delle Donne completed her banner sophomore campaign with a brilliant career-high 50-point explosion as the Raiders avenged an earlier loss to arch rival Wilmington St. Elizabeth, 68-51, in the state championship game. "I really didn't want to lose, but I also was very lucky everything was going in," she said in her usual humble manner.
Her final sophomore averages were an impressive 28.5 points, 11.3 rebounds, 3.5 blocks and 2.2 assists. She shot 50 percent from the field (44 percent from three-point range) and a sizzling 95 percent (94-of-102) from the free throw line as the Raiders posted a 21-5 record.
Prior to Delle Donne's junior year, Burbidge, who had coached only at the college and AAU level, became Ursuline's head coach. He first had watched her play at age 13 and saw right away that she was "pretty special. I was just overwhelmed (by her ability). The neatest thing was how she interacted with her teammates. Even at a young age she was the consummate example of what a great player should be.
"She has an array of offensive talents. She can post you up or take you out and shoot the three. She's a 90-percent free throw shooter. She's been tremendously receptive (to his coaching) and matured into a tremendous leader. She is a unique package."
The Ursuline superstar had another great year as a junior, but she still has a bad taste in her mouth from losing the state title game to St. Elizabeth. She finished with averages of 28.3 points, 10.2 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 89 percent accuracy from the free throw line. The team record again was 21-5.
Her senior year already has produced a surprise honor. In the middle of this fall's volleyball campaign, she was asked to fill in for an injured player. She never had played the sport before, but she wound up leading the 22-2 Raiders to the state championship. She had 16 kills and six blocks in the finale.
The 18-year-old sensation, who "wants to go out on top," now is seeking her fourth state championship, but she knows it won't be easy because she's going to face another year of double- and triple-teaming. "I've seen a bunch of box-and-ones and triangle-and-twos," she pointed out. "But mainly one guards me in the face all the time and the rest of the team helps out. I can't remember any team ever playing me one-on-one. I'm used to it, so it doesn't really frustrate me."
This year's schedule is loaded. Maybe too loaded. Noonan observes, "She has brought such attention to the game that their schedule is insane. Everybody wants to play them. They only have five home games."
Tom Ferrier, head coach at arch rival St. Elizabeth, has an outside perspective on Ursuline and Delle Donne, in particular, because he has squared off against the Raiders frequently over the past four years. In fact, they have played for the state title each of the previous three seasons. The schools are only about four miles apart and he concedes that the rivalry is "fierce and we are absolute enemies on the court. That goes for players and fans, but it's also fun."
Despite the intense rivalry, Ferrier says, "You need a thesaurus to describe her ability. Wow! She is phenomenal! You're not ever, ever going to stop Elena. Coaches use words like `contain' and sometimes that's not possible. We double- and triple-team and try to frustrate her. No one person I've seen can guard her alone. Her (shooting) touch is absolutely perfect. Her range is two steps over half court.
"She's big and strong. She's very mobile and gets up and down the floor with not many steps. It seems effortless at times. She works harder than any kid in the state outside of the gym. She has a trainer, works on shooting and lifts weights. On top of that, she's a nice young lady and has a nice personality."
Ferrier is quick to add that Delle Donne also has some talented teammates. "I think their team is going to be top 10 in the nation," he predicted. "If Elena explodes in multiple games, they can play with anybody. They are going to have a monster year. But we have a tougher schedule because we have to play them twice."
Delle Donne, who carries a 3.7 GPA, has signed with the University of Connecticut, with Tennessee being the bridesmaid. "I really liked the girls," she explained. "Maya Moore is awesome. You've got Geno (head coach Geno Auriemma) - he's an incredible coach and a great person. I'm going to learn so much from him."
She plans to follow her mother as a special education teacher and already serves as a volunteer at a special education school. Her sister Liz, age 23, is the story behind the occupation. She was born with cerebral palsy, is blind and deaf.
Delaware never before had seen two female basketball players like Delle Donne and St. Elizabeth graduate Khadijah Rushdan, the current state scoring record holder who now is a freshman at Rutgers. "They took it to a different level," Ferrier emphasized. "(When Delle Donne graduates in the spring) it's going to create a lot more parity."
Still, Delle Donne has caused him so much grief over the years, Ferrier wants to be absolutely positive that she won't be back next season. "I may go to her graduation just to make sure she gets out," he said.