New role, same competitive drive

"I really went through some really low lows, that's for sure, during the stretch of 13 surgeries," Stiles said. "I was someone that basically put all my eggs in one basket, and I did not know who I was without basketball. That was kind of my identity. It was very, very hard, some of those years I went through, but I wouldn't trade it for anything."

She started her own business, running basketball camps, offering one-on-one instruction and giving motivational speeches. She bought a home in Springfield, Mo. She tried, too, to feed her competitive cravings with activities potentially less taxing on her body than basketball, but she struggled to do anything as pastime rather than passion. On what should have been a leisurely hike up Pikes Peak with her brother, she couldn't stand it when a stranger passed them. She ran the rest of the way, left so dehydrated that she was barely able to make it through one of her camps the next day. She tried competitive cycling, unable to simply ride for exercise. She took up long-distance running; she ended up trying unsuccessfully to qualify for the Olympic marathon trials last year.

You don't average 26.3 points per game in college without being wired differently, without an obsession. But every time Stiles tried to find a new outlet, she took it to such extremes that her body again balked.

As someone put it to her, she had the engine of a Dodge Viper, and the body of a Volkswagen bus.

After the foray into distance running, she realized she had to stop, that she had to let a casual workout suffice instead of turning it into an Olympic quest. It was around that time that Elliott, who was on the Missouri State staff that recruited Stiles but left soon thereafter on a coaching trek that took her to Portland State and UC San Diego, among others, before Loyola Marymount. She didn't really expect Stiles to take her up on the offer. For one thing, it not only meant relocating to Los Angeles but also taking a significant financial hit to work for the modest wages allotted to college assistants. But Stiles visited the campus and made a snap decision. She rented her house in Springfield, found a condo five minutes from the school to keep her out of the infamous L.A. traffic, packed a U-Haul and headed west to try to excel at something new.

The physical toll basketball took is such that Stiles no longer plays at all; even one-on-one games on successive days leave her in pain. She doesn't run games with the current players and jumps into practice drills only on rare occasions. But considering she was in the same draft class as recent WNBA championship winners Tamika Catchings and Katie Douglas, Stiles is still young enough that her presence alone carries import.

A basketball generation removed from Stiles, Alex Cowling is the senior star for the Lions, the West Coast Conference newcomer of the year in 2008-09 and an all-conference pick each season thereafter. She remembered watching Stiles during that run to the Final Four, albeit the details a little hazy for someone who was barely 11 years old. What she has seen since in old highlights only reinforces her new coach's credibility.

"I love how unconscious she is on the court," Cowling said of the old footage. "She takes a shot, she does not care if she makes it, misses it; she's shooting again. And everyone knows she's going to shoot it -- people guarding her, her team, people in the crowd -- but she's going to make it anyway, and she's going to shoot it anyway. I love that."

Stiles works with Cowling and the other guards, teaches them what she calls the "money moves" from her playing days. It's different working on someone else's schedule, and the bus rides and plane flights are tough on her body, but it's rewarding. Stiles knew she would enjoy recruiting, the challenge of convincing players to be a part of building something at Loyola Marymount rather than signing on with a more established program. She worried about scouting but found she enjoyed that, too, trying to find weaknesses to exploit. In everything there is a chance to compete. The other part of not taking the court in practice, she admits, is she would be afraid she might throw a tantrum if she lost.