1999 Female Amateur Athlete of the Year

Chamique Holdsclaw

Chamique Holdsclaw, a senior at the University of Tennessee, was again chosen as the unanimous preseason selection for 1998 Player of the Year. This summer she was featured in SLAM magazine as she spent the break playing on the U.S. National Team. Recent accomplishments include the Honda-Broderick Cup Award for Outstanding 1998 NCAA Female Athlete of the Year. She began her final season needing just 150 points to pass Bridgette Gordon as UT's all-time scoring leader and 24 rebounds to pass Sheila Frost as the university's all-time rebounding leader. Her first three years at UT resulted in the NCAA Championship Title. Chamique plans to go for a fourth.

In all, Holdsclaw has won titles every year, for the past eight years, beginning with the Queens Lutheran School Eighth Grade Championship. She tallied almost 1,000 points in a single season, recorded her highest season average at Tennessee with 23.5 ppg, led the team in rebounds with an 8.4 rpg average and reached double figures in 39 of 39 games.

Holdsclaw has earned many awards including the 1997 ESPY Award for basketball, the Victor Award, USA Basketball Female Athlete of the Year, two-time SEC Player of the Week and was the team's MVP and Best Rebounder--and those were all in one year of her career.

Holdsclaw's lowest point total of her junior season came after a day of playing one-on-one with basketball legend Michael Jordan.

In the national and international basketball arena, Holdsclaw helped to bring home a gold medal from the 1998 World Championships in Berlin. During the championship series she ranked third in scoring average and rebound average. She led the USA contingent in scoring 19 points versus Japan and 13 against Slovakia. She joined the USA National team for the first time in the summer of 1997 as the only collegiate player on the team. Holdsclaw aspires to playing on Olympic Teams in the future. She says she chose to join the Lady Vols because of the great fan support, the tradition and the togetherness of the team.