New's Wedding

Posted by Harriet Benson

Kristen Newlin ('07) and Emre Vatansever married June 21, 2014 in Stanford's Memorial Church.  Kristen, known to us as New, met Emre in Turkey where she plays and he coaches basketball. Both have become bilingual.

New's bridal party included Christy Titchenal (Titch) as maid of honor, Sebnem Kimyacioglu, Nicole Powell, sister-in-law Ashleigh Newlin, and Turkish basketball player Tugba Palazoglu.  Nicole left early for her Seattle Storm commitment; Tugba not pictured.

Family and friends came from afar.  Among the attendees were Amy, Charmin, Marcella, DeeDee, and several basketball classmates, including Krista Birnie (Rapp), Markisha, Shelley, Morgan, Brooke, Clare, Jillian, and JJ.  Rapp's, Titch's, Seb's, Brooke's, Jill's, and Nicole's families also came to the wedding.

New danced at her wedding

Here are more photos of attendees:

New wore a tradional Turkish garment at a pre-wedding party.

Emre and Kristen return to Turkey this fall where New will play for Istanbul University.

Jayne speaks out on LGBT rights

Jayne is definitely on board for "WNBA Pride", the league's marketing initiative to reach out to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

Read more... in Mechelle Voepel's espnW article.

Jamie Carey is assistant coach at Colorado

Do you remember Jamie Carey's 3-point shooting? She made 44.5% of her 3-point attempts in her freshman season (2000). That still holds as the Stanford career record.

We'll be seeing her back in Maples next season — she is now an assistant basketball coach at the Univerity of Colorado.

Since retiring from professional basketball four years ago, Jamie has been the assistant women’s national team director at USA Basketball and has been coaching high school basketball in Colorado.

Read more...

New Cardinal hoopster? ... or fan?

Meet Annika Noel Birnie

Daughter of Krista Rappahahn ('06) and David Birnie

Arrived May 24

Class of '35?

Chiney named Pac-12 Woman of the Year

Yesterday Chiney was selected as the Pac-12 Conference Woman of the Year for the 2013-14 academic year.

As such, she becomes the Conference’s candidate for the NCAA Woman of the Year, presented annually to graduating student-athletes who have distinguished themselves throughout their collegiate careers in the areas of academic achievement, athletics excellence, community service and leadership.

The Pac-12 announcement details Chiney's accomplishments that qualify her so richly for this honor.

Here is more information about the NCAA award.

Nneka & Chiney's challenge

Nneka and Chiney are continuing their efforts to empower girls in Nigeria with a campaign that has three major goals:

• Engage American girls basketball players in community service.
• Raise awareness among Americans about what is happening right now in Nigeria.
• Raise money for UNICEF Nigeria's emergency fund that will help to support programs such as girls education and girls empowerment among other critical initiatives protecting and saving the lives of children.

Michelle Smith ( espnW) tells the story in Ogwumikes take on Nigeria fight.

Nneka and Chiney explain the campaign and invite participation in Nneka & Chiney's Challenge.

Katy Steding named head coach at Boston University

Boston University has named Katy Steding (Stanford '90) as its women’s basketball head coach.

This will be Katy's 14th year as a collegiate or pro coach. She began her career as the head coach at NAIA Warner Pacific College for seven seasons. She was then an associate coach in the WNBA, at Columbia University, at USF and, for the past two seasons, at Cal. This is her first job as an NCAA Division I head coach.

Read more in the announcements from Boston University and from the Boston Globe.

Markisha replaces Morgan as head coach at Menlo-Atherton

After two years as girls' head basketball coach at Menlo-Atherton high school, Morgan Clyburn ('09) resigned.

Markisha Coleman ('07), who was Morgan's top assistant, has been named as the Bears' new head coach.

There's more information about Markisha in this announcement from Palo Alto Online.

Chiney leads Sun to first win of the season

Chiney helped Connecticut to its first victory of the season — 71-59 over the Seattle Storm.

Helped indeed! She tallied 18 points, seven rebounds, two steals and an assist.

Chiney has been the Sun's leading scorer in each of its four games this season. She had her first pro double-double (25 points, 10 rebounds) in the Sun's game at Minnesota last week.

Here is the game recap, which links to the box score, play-by-play and a gallery of photos.

Jillian signs with Australian team

After playing professional basketball in Italy for five seasons, Jillian Harmon ('09) is ready for the challenge of a new league.

Next season she'll be playing in the WNBL, the Australian Women's National Basketball League, for the Townsville Fire.

Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia, about 200 miles south of Cairns (map).

Here's the WNBL announcement: Fire sign latest Olympian