EVERYTHING'S COMING UP ACES

DEARICA HAMBY FLOURISHES WHILE BALANCING LIFE IN WNBA, ITALIAN LEAGUE AND MOTHERHOOD

By Marc Pruitt

The list of notable accomplishments for Dearica Hamby is infinite. The former Deacon has continued her ascent in basketball circles in the A1 Italian League and in the WNBA, where she will (hopefully) be entering her sixth season — three as a member of the Las Vegas Aces after three with the San Antonio Stars — once the league can finalize plans and logistics after the season was delayed because of COVID-19.

Hamby graduated from Wake Forest in 2015 as the all-time leader in points scored (1,801) and rebounds (1,021), records that stood since 1991 and were held previously by her coach, Jennifer Hoover.

In her junior season, she was the first Wake Forest player to lead the ACC in scoring and rebounding, and she was the named the Marge Crisp Award winner as the Female Athlete of the Year for the Deacons in her final two years.

As the sixth overall pick in 2015, Hamby was the first player from Wake Forest drafted in the WNBA and was named as the league’s Sixth Woman of the Year during the 2019 season, where she averaged 11 points per game and 7.6 rebounds – and helped lead the Aces to the semifinals of the playoffs.

During her second season in the league, she gave birth to her daughter, Amaya, after playing for four months while she was pregnant.

But one thing, or make that three things, that might stand out most for Hamby during her career are the tattoos.

No, not tattoos on her. Tattoos of her. Three of them.

“Kind of crazy, right,” Hamby said with a laugh. “I mean, I get fans wanting to have tattoos of (Michael) Jordan, or LeBron (James) and Kobe (Bryant), but me? I was flattered when I found out about it. It’s really pretty cool.”

One of the tattoos immortalizes Hamby’s game-winning 35-foot, 3-pointer in the second round of the WNBA playoffs last October against the Chicago Skye.

Hamby saw that one of the Aces’ fans was interested in getting one, and she reached out to him on social media and arranged to pay for it.

“There is another one a female fan sent to me that shows me from the back in my jersey, and it has my signature – one of those things you really don’t think about happening to you,” Hamby said.

Playing basketball was also something that Hamby never envisioned happening to her, much less professional basketball. She didn’t even play the game until her sophomore year of high school in Georgia.

“I played softball when I was younger and was never really interested in basketball,” she said. “I grew five inches before my sophomore year in high school and was about six feet tall. I just decided I was going to give basketball a try. I made the JV team but didn’t get to play too much. I was clumsy and awkward. But I liked it enough to stay with it. I had a really good junior year, then transferred for my senior year and won a state championship. Things started to take off after that.”

Hamby was recruited to Wake Forest by Mike Petersen and played in all 34 games as a freshman, starting 13.

Hoover became the coach before Hamby’s sophomore season and immediately recognized there was a lot more to her game.

“It was almost an immediate realization that she was different,” Hoover said. “She was extremely talented and naturally gifted. We also thought she could have been a receiver on the football team. And we kept seeing her develop every year to become a force. We are careful not to put anyone in a box, and she just continued to flourish because of all the different things she could do for us.

Her success doesn’t surprise me one bit. When you have a player with that kind of talent and that has meant so much to our program and to see the way she balanced academics and athletics, it’s a great source of pride for us.

Even if Hamby broke Hoover’s longstanding scoring (1,728) and rebounding (1,006) records…

“It got to be a running joke with us as she was getting closer, I would always tell her that I was going to take her out of games more often,” Hoover quipped. “When she broke them, those were some proud moments. I was surprised they lasted as long as they did. It was my great honor to be coaching her when she did that. She has continued to roll with the momentum she started here while juggling being a mom and a professional player. She is thriving at it.”

Hamby was also thriving earlier this year while playing her fourth season in Italy for Ragusa, a team on the island of Sicily.

“We were favored to win the championship this season when the virus hit,” Hamby said. “I knew things could get bad quickly, so I had to make arrangements to get back home.”

Hamby had just played a game in early March in Milan, which is in the northern part of Italy and was among the hardest hit areas by the virus.

“We got back from Milan and were told we had to quarantine for 14 days,” she said. “My mom and my daughter were with me at the time, and I kind of had a feeling that things were going to start spreading quickly and even get to America. I sent them home after that because Italy and Spain started canceling flights. There was a lot of uncertainty at the time about what was going to happen.”

She flew home to Georgia on March 16 and then began the process of moving into the home she bought in Las Vegas.

“Moving during a pandemic is pretty complicated, especially with a young child,” Hamby said. “I wanted to go ahead and get out here and begin to enjoy our new home and settle in, get some rest. We aren’t sure what’s going to happen with our WNBA season yet, but I signed a three-year contract last year, and I knew this is where I wanted to be. I’m planning on being here the rest of my career, and I want to play another four, five years minimum.”

Hamby loves being a mother. Amaya comes to all the games.

“She sits behind the bench and cheers for me all the time,” Hamby said. “She likes to watch me shoot. But when I’m home, I’m home. When I’m on the court, it’s basketball. Basketball has this window for me, but when practice is done or when the game is over, I enjoy my free time with my family. That’s important to me. I don’t want basketball to consume my life.” Hamby has also relished playing for her current coach, Bill Laimbeer, a former player for the “Bad Boy” Detroit Pistons teams that won NBA Championships in 1989 and 1990.

“I knew a little bit about his reputation, and I could definitely see that in my first year he was our coach,” Hamby said. “He’s got that intensity and fire, that stubbornness that you probably remember from his playing days. He didn’t like my game at first, but I think that’s just Bill being Bill. I started to understand him the more I was around him.

“We spent a lot of time pulling and tugging my first year to the point where I really wondered if he wanted me back on the team. Last season, which was my best in the league. He even told me ‘this team isn’t who we are without you,’ so I guess he grew to love me. I must be one of his favorites now.”

Hamby isn’t sure about where she wants life to take her once her playing days are over.

“It’s important for me to have my family, and I definitely want to have more kids,” she said. “I want to focus my energy towards that and do something that allows me that flexibility.”