Jackie Stiles is one of the greatest college basketball players ever — she set the NCAA scoring record while playing at what was then Southwest Missouri State and most of you, surely, will remember her team’s extraordinary run to the Final Four that year. She is also an amazing person. I’ve known her now for closing on 25 years, and followed her from when she was just a kid in Claflin, Kansas, making 1,000 shots a day, through her incredible college career, through her injury-plagued pro career and into her post-career life as she has searched to find the person she is without basketball. On March 1, a new documentary by Brent Huff called “The Jackie Stiles Story: Anything is Possible,” will premier in her hometown of Springfield, Mo. With that in mind, it seemed a good time to catch up with Jackie, talk a bit about her life and, sure, relive a couple of Jackie Stiles legends (like the time she won the Kansas state track titles in the 400, 800, one mile and two mile on the same day). Super fun conversation. Hope you’ll like it. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit joeblogs.joeposnanski.com/subscribe
Hi.
Welcome.
I'm Joe Posnansky, and I'm very excited today for this podcast.
I've got my dear friend and one of the greatest basketball players to ever play the game, Jackie Stiles with us.
We're going to talk a little bit about Jackie's life, Jackie's career, what she's doing now.
But there's also, we're going to talk a little bit about a new documentary that's coming out in, I guess a week, a couple of weeks maybe called, what is it called, Jackie.
The Jackie Styles story, right.
Yeah, the Jackie style story.
Anything is possible.
So very exciting.
So we'll talk a little bit about that.
But first of all, great to see you.
I've known you since a very long time known you since you were in college, of course, when you were playing there and I was in Kansas City and you're from Claflin, so I've been to Claflin and seen everything.
It's been, it's amazing how many years go by, isn't it?
I mean, it's just, it's incredible.
I know.
Time flies.
Yes, Joe, we definitely go way back.
And I look back on many of the interviews that we, we've done together and have always thoroughly enjoyed our time that we've spent together.
So thank you.