As I always do when traveling to a sporting event, I try to read a book on the sport I am attending. This past Sunday, I went to my first WNBA game where my favorite team, the Minnesota Lynx defeated the New York Liberty. The book I chose was the memoir of Candace Parker, certainly one of best women to play the game.
Title/Author: “The Can-Do Midset” by Candice Parker.
Rating: 4 of 5 stars (very good)
Review: Candace Parker has had a very successful basketball career. She was a member of the Tennessee Lady Volunteers championship teams in 2007 and 2008, was the #1 pick of the 2008 WNBA draft for the Los Angeles Sparks, and won three WNBA championships - two with the Sparks and one with the Chicago Sky. After retiring from playing, she has made a successful transition tothe broadcast booth. Through it all, she has time to be a wife, mother and write this very good memoir.
The title of the book comes from the nickname she was given in her childhood. She felt she could do anything with her older brothers - she had that “can-do” attitude. However, as she explains in the book, this hasn’t always been the case. But her perseverance kept her going on whatever challenge she was facing. And there were plenty.
These included injuries in both college and the WNBA, a divorce from her husband (who was also a professional basketball player), how to raise their daughter while she played in both the WNBA and overseas and later marrying a woman she met in Russia while playing in that country. So, just from that little bit of information on her, it’s easy to see she has been through a lot, both good and bad,and she shares a lot.
As one might expect given this, she opens up about racism, LGBTQ+ issues, motherhood, people who played an important role in her life and of course, basketball. While it isn’t uncommon for professional athletes to credit past coaches for their support and lessons, Parker shows a lot of love for her college coach at Tennessee, the late Pat Summitt. That is just one example of Parker’s overall positivity throughout the book. At times the text does get repetitive, but at least it’s mostly positive,despite some of the negative things that happened to her.
There are five main topics in the book, from the letters of “can do” - Community, Authenticity, Negativity (how she dealt with it, as mentioned above), the Dash and Opportunity. Through it all, this is a very good memoir by a sure-fire Basketball Hall of Fame inductee.
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