Tuesday, August 10, 2010

NY Times-WNBA Star Balances Home Life With Hardwood

Taj McWilliams-Franklin with daughter Maia and husband Reggie Franklin: Ruth Fremson/NY Times
(Story reported by Karen Crouse)

The bruises come with Taj McWilliams-Franklin’s territory in the low post. More painful are the wounds opened by e-mails like the one from her husband saying a kindergarten classmate had punched their daughter in the nose and threatened to kill her. 

That happened last year in San Antonio while McWilliams-Franklin, a 6-foot-2 power forward for the Liberty, was playing in Turkey. The news tugged at her heart, which beats for basketball but belongs to her three daughters, two of whom were born when she was an unwed teenager just starting to blossom as a basketball player.  

McWilliams-Franklin’s 17-year professional career is a triumph of motherhood over matter. She was 33, married and established in the W.N.B.A. when her youngest, Maia, was born in 2003. Maia has a much more stable family life than McWilliams-Franklin could provide for her older children. Michele Taylor-McWilliams was born in September 1988 when her mother was a 17-year-old high school senior in Augusta, Ga. 

(click here to read the full story on the NY Times website)

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