"Winning At All Costs Is Not Winning At All" and "Character Is First" are the California Interscholastic Federation mottos inscribed on the state championship sportsmanship medal that Candice Wiggins received when her La Jolla Country Day School Torreos squad won the 2001 Girls' Division V state basketball championship and she was bestowed the Sportsmanship Award honor.
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| Tom Hauck | |
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| Candice Wiggins not only has model looks, she also has proven more than once that she is a model student-athlete in every sense of the phrase. |
Angela has raised Candice, her sister Cassandra, 18 (a basketball player at NYU), and brother Alan Jr., 15 (a 6-foot-6 sophomore on the Poway H.S. varsity basketball team) alone since the tragic drug-related death of her husband, Alan, a major-league baseball star with the San Diego Padres and Baltimore Orioles in the 1980s.
"I believe it is Candice's destiny to complete the work Alan was unable to finish," says Angela, a track star at John Muir High School in Pasadena, where she and Alan were high school sweethearts before marrying. "Candice is the embodiment of everything that was good about Alan."
That goodness has manifested itself in countless ways on the playing court and in the smile that constantly adorns her charming features; however, never more so than in what Candice did for JoAnn Michael. On the morning of Sat., March 17, most players, parents, coaches and fans were returning to the San Diego area after the school's triumph the previous evening.
In the Wiggins' car Candice was looking at her sportsmanship medal and wondered aloud why she had been chosen to receive the award. She could feel that there was a purpose to her receiving the honor but could not explain her feelings.
Her mother answered that everything has a purpose and the purpose in her receiving the medal was to pass along the spirituality and strength of character she possesses to others.
Although both Candice and Angela describe having strong emotional feelings during their trip back, what they did not know was that in another car traveling along I-5 was a group of students that included the school's unofficial mascot, Kenner Michael "the wave man" of La Jolla Country Day School. Along the way the driver of the car lost control of the vehicle and in the ensuing accident, Michael lost his life.
"Kenner was the real deal," according to Angela, uninhibited and undaunted by the taunting and teasing he received for his antics. He was determined to bring the enthusiasm of his act to the show and help his team on to victory.
When he was told that the rules at Arco Arena would not allow him to bring in such a large sign, he tore it in half and asked "Is it the right size now?"
When Candice heard about Kenner's death she knew immediately why she had been awarded at the state championships. She believes what Angela has preached to her since she started excelling in athletics: that she must pass along the gifts that go with her God-given talents. For that reason she decided to give not only her sportsmanship medal but also her championship medal to Kenner's mother, JoAnn.
By doing so this young woman showed insight, compassion and maturity far beyond her years. As the state's Division V player of the year and as one of the top five freshmen in the country, according to Cal-Hi Sports, many more medals are probably in the future of this talented young woman.
Because her kindness to JoAnn Michael is an example of what exemplifies the sportsmanship motto of the CIF, the organization has decided to replace Candice's medals and rehonor her for having the true heart of a state champion.
We can only hope that her example will be one that will lead many others to the same path in life.
The Girl That Makes You Say, "Wow!"
By Mark Tennis, 2003
At the memorial service for Kenner Michael, La Jolla Country Day standout freshman Candice Wiggins walked up to the mother of the boy who died and handed her two medals.
One was her state championship team medal, the other was a medal given to her for sportsmanship.
"It says right on the medal, 'Winning at all costs is not winning at all,'" Wiggins said at the time in a story published by the San Diego Union-Tribune. "It wasn't worth the loss of a life. I just wanted to show JoAnne (Kenner's mom) that he was more important to us than the state championship."
Officials at the CIF state office were so impressed with such wisdom and action from a 14-year-old that they ordered duplicate medals. They were presented to Wiggins as part of a school assembly later in the school year.
It's a good thing Candice doesn't remember much before she was five years old. When she was three, she had half of her face torn off when a car backed into her. Then when she was four, her father died from AIDS at age 32.
Young Candice was visiting relatives in Pasadena on that day in 1990. A woman backing up in her driveway hadn't noticed three girls -- Candice and two cousins -- walking behind the car. Luckily, none of the toddlers were run over and the two cousins only suffered bruises. But Candice's shirt became entangled in the undercarriage behind one of the wheels and she was pulled in. Before the car stopped rolling, her face was slashed, virtually in half.
"It was so bad you could see all the way to the bone," said Angela Wiggins, Candice's mother. "She still needs some plastic surgery because of it. We were just thankful that she wasn't smashed worse."
Candice's life was never in danger because of the accident, but she did stay in the hospital for one week and there have been several surgeries. There is still a visible scar, too, just above the left eyebrow.
At the time of the accident, Angela's husband, Alan Wiggins, was still alive, still hoping against all odds that someday he'd return to Major League Baseball. But a few months later, Wiggins, still just six years removed from hitting .364 in the World Series for the San Diego Padres, started suffering from the symptoms of full blown AIDS. He died on January 6, 1991 at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles.
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| Candice Wiggins honed her skills as a seventh grader playing with boys. |
Alan and Angela both graduated from John Muir High of Pasadena in 1976. His next stop was Pasadena City College, where Wiggins was initially spotted by major league scouts, primarily because of his blazing speed on the bases and as a second baseman. Another second baseman who followed the same path out of Muir in the 1930s was a fella named Jackie Robinson. Yes, that Jackie Robinson.
By the time he was playing for Lodi of the Class A California League in 1980, he and Angela were married and he was starting to make a name for himself. It was during that 1980 season when Alan stole an amazing 120 bases, the all-time record at the time for baseball at any level.
By the 1981 season, Wiggins had been called up to the big leagues to play for the Padres. It was then during the 1982 season when his difficulty with drugs became widely known. A one-month suspension was given to him during that season and it was a battle that hung over him for the rest of his life.
All was swell during the 1983 and 1984 seasons. Wiggins, normally batting in the leadoff spot in the lineup with future Hall of Famer and roommate Tony Gwynn hitting third, had batting averages of .276 and .258 in those two seasons and stole 136 bases. His 70 steals in 1984 is still the Padres' club record. In the 1984 World Series, one the Padres lost in six games to Sparky Anderson's Detroit Tigers, Wiggins stood out in the spotlight with eight hits in 22 at-bats.
The 1985 season was the absolute opposite of the previous year. Wiggins was suspended for a good portion of the season and by the time it was over he'd been traded to the Baltimore Orioles.
Here is where the story becomes less clear. Press reports would indicate that Alan's drug problems continued to haunt him, but Angela says that her husband "was clean" for three years and didn't revert back to drugs until after he became depressed about his baseball career.
"A lot of people in the Orioles' organization wanted it to be Cal Ripken at shortstop and Billy Ripken at second," Angela said. "My husband was told not to steal, not to play his kind of game. Then when he was pinch-hitting, people would say, 'Hey, I wonder if he's using again.' It was a lot of pressure on him, it wasn't fair and he didn't know how to handle it."
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| Candice Wiggins graced the cover of Student Sports Magazine in October of 2003 and she could be the face of the WNBA in the very near future. |
It is believed Wiggins contracted the AIDS virus from an infected needle. But he became sick during a time when little was known about the illness, and people would jump to the wrong conclusions.
"Alan was one of the first athletes to admit he had a drug problem and he had no drug rehabilitation centers to go to," Angela said. "He was called a faggot and we were almost made to look like we were Bonnie and Clyde."
In November of 1990, Wiggins' lungs began to fail and he had to go to the hospital. Doctors said just before Christmas that he "may not pull through." Steve Garvey, known more for being an ex-L.A. Dodger than an ex-Padre, was one former teammate who visited often.
Almost 10 months to the day after Wiggins died, another 32-year-old athlete became connected to AIDS. It was Magic Johnson, who stunned the sports world by announcing his retirement from the Los Angeles Lakers since he had become infected with the virus. Johnson has never developed the full-blown version of the disease that killed Wiggins due to advancements in treatment and by taking care of himself. Still, it makes you wonder what might have been had Wiggins been infected just a few years later.
Next June, when the graduating class of La Jolla Country Day throws their caps into the air, what will Angela Wiggins heave toward the heavens? She'll be graduating in a sense as well, entering a phase of her life she's been looking forward to for a long time.
On that day, when Candice starts looking toward college and beyond, Angela will have successfully completed the hardest part of raising three children by herself. Alan's death created a major void, of course, but he did make sure his family was taken care of once he was gone. Angela, 46, has never had to worry about a job and has dedicated herself completely to the kids -- Cassandra, now 20 and about to graduate herself from New York University, Alan Jr., 18, who is starting his collegiate career this fall at the University of San Francisco, and Candice, 16, who can go to literally any college she wants. That her mother has given her full devotion to herself and to her brother and sister is certainly a motivating factor for Candice.
"I do play for her," Candice said. "All her life has been for us. She hasn't had a life for herself."
"It's been challenging," Angela said. "All three of them played sports and the hardest times are when I had to be three places at the same time. I had to be the man of the family, too."
Alan's brother, Donald Wiggins, has been very helpful and Angela's brother, Darrell McKenzie, has been in the support system as well.
Despite the athletic background of her late husband, Angela has always stressed academics with her kids and all of them have been honor students. Candice carries a GPA of 3.72 into her senior year at La Jolla Country Day, a private school known for a demanding academic course load, and her teachers talk about her classroom leadership the way coaches do about star players.
Cassandra is tall, almost 6-foot, and Angela tried to steer her towards basketball. She was good, too, and enjoyed outstanding seasons at Poway High and at Muir. But her mother says the passion for it just wasn't there. For Alan Jr. and Candice, their passion for basketball was honed upon hours and hours of going one-on-one against each other on the playground. Alan says his sister never won, but she remembers a time when it was more like 50-50.
"Candice just begged me to play basketball all the time," Angela said. "She has the same desire in her heart for basketball that her father had for baseball."
In the seventh grade, Candice played with her brother on a boys team. Mixing it up with boys at that age is always a big benefit for a young girls player and that was definitely the case with Candice.
Where she would go to high school then became the major question for Angela and Candice. Alan Jr. was attending public schools in the Poway area where the family has lived for many years. But Angela remembered a conversation she had with Alan Sr. before he died about how great he thought it would be if Candice could go to La Jolla Country Day, the same school where the grandchildren of Padre owners Ray and Joan Kroc were attending. Joan Kroc, whose late husband was the founder of McDonald's, even helped Candice get admitted to the school. She started attending classes at La Jolla Country Day, which accepts students from nursery school through 12th grade, as an eighth-grader.
Athletically, for such a small school, La Jolla Country Day has made a significant mark in California. The Torreys are so small they don't play 11-man football, but last fall their eight-man team was the best of its kind in the state and they once had a runningback, Rashaan Salaam, who later would win the Heisman Trophy. The school also has been dominant in small school tennis and one player who once led the girls squad was Alexandra Stevenson, who is the daughter of basketball legend Julius Erving. There were only whispers of who Stevenson's father was when she was at the school. The story didn't break until Stevenson, who is now generally ranked among the top 50 players in the world, was winning matches at Wimbledon four years ago.
Ironically, a year before Candice started playing on the high school level, one of the state's top Division V girls teams was being fielded at a rival school, Santa Fe Christian of Solana Beach. A Santa Fe Christian player, Brandi Collato, also was the Division V state player of the year as a junior. Collato would end her career with 3,226 points for a new San Diego Section record the next season, but she wasn't the player of the year. A certain freshman had arrived.
Not many high school girls basketball coaches have experience at the Division I college level, so when they evaluate players on their team they do so from a limited vantage point. That's not the case for La Jolla Country Day girls coach Terri Bamford. Before coming over to the Torreys, she had been an assistant coach at UC Irvine as well as a head coach for seven years at San Pasqual High of Escondido.
Bamford came into the gym one day in 1999 to see a promising seventh grader she'd heard had enrolled at the school. It didn't take long for her to know that the upcoming years at La Jolla Country Day might be special.
"Candice jumped right out at the beginning of that practice," Bamford said. "She was involved in every play. She had eye-opening quickness."
When Wiggins reached the varsity level for the 2000-01 season, she wasn't the only promising freshman on the team, either. A 6-3 center, Marissa Rivera, also had come to the school. In fact, in that state title game win over Redwood Christian, it was Rivera, with 20 points, who was La Jolla Country Day's top scorer.
"Having a state championship team with so many freshmen was pretty incredible," Bamford said. "We also knew even then that we might have oneof the best players in the country."
With Wiggins, Rivera and others returning the following season, the Torreys went wire-to-wire as the state's No. 1 team in their division.
They started playing much bigger schools earlier in the season, including a competitive loss vs. national powerhouse Lynwood, and rolled up easy win after easy win in the playoffs.
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| Kirby Lee | |
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| Candice Wiggins scored 102 points in four state title games for the Torreys of La Jolla Country Day. |
"What separates her from any other player I've ever seen is how hard she plays," Bamford said. "She's the complete package, she can handle the ball and is a great team player. She never stops and never takes a play off."
After that game, Candice was one of five finalists for the state's Ms. Basketball State Player of the Year honor, given out by Cal-Hi Sports, which has covered prep sports in the state for 25 years. Her credentials included a 30-point per game scoring average as well as playoff outings of 42, 38 and 37 points before she even headed out to the ARCO Arena court for her memorable state final.
In one of the closest decisions anyone involved with the selection process can remember, Candice was not the player of the year. It went instead to Lynwood point guard Sa'de Wiley-Gatewood, who would be a cover story for this magazine herself if just basketball ability (and not compelling story angles) were the only criteria involved. Candice was the San Diego County player of the year for the second straight time and later in the school year was named the state's small school girls athlete of the year.
She knew it as soon as the bump was felt and the whistle blew. The look on her face was one of anguish, her eyes were wide open and she had completely stopped her movement, just like a little kid caught with her hand in a cookie jar.
The bump was Candice trying to cut off a slashing forward from St. Mary's of Stockton. That player, Dominique Banks, was having the month of her life, and had led St. Mary's to a spot opposite La Jolla Country Day in last season's Division IV state final. The Torreys had been moved up a division by their section office after winning back-to-back Division V crowns and everyone knew that St. Mary's had a team that could easily derail any plans for an LJCD four-peat in the Wiggins-Rivera era.
When the foul was called, it was still the third quarter, but it was the fifth of the game for Candice. She was gone, and although her teammates hung tough against a strong team, St. Mary's went on to a 56-51 win. It was also Banks, not Candice, who had the monster outing. The 5-8 senior finished with 31 points and 17 rebounds. Candice was only able to knock down 17 points and had 11 rebounds.
"That loss just killed all of us," Candice said. "I should've given her (Banks) a little more room. I really hope to make up for it this year."
Some members of press row threw up their hands, too, about the officials' calls that seemed to go against Wiggins. One line of thinking was that the referees just weren't used to seeing anybody that quick on the floor and therefore didn't call the game properly.
Earlier in the season, Candice missed about a month's worth of games with torn knee cartilage. The injury didn't occur on the basketball court, but was one of those tears that come from the straight up-and-down jumping of volleyball. Candice suffered the injury practicing with her club team and it was a hot topic of conversation at the CIF State Federated Council meeting, which was going on in San Diego at the time.
For a couple of weeks, the entire club vs. high school debate seemed to be centering on Candice.
The next injustice toward Wiggins didn't come from an official, but from Parade Magazine, which annually releases an All-American Girls Basketball Team that most prep writers around the country blindly accept as gospel truth, igoring anybody else's selections.
Although Candice averaged 30.2 points per game with 15 rebounds per game and was chosen as the Union-Tribune's player of the year for a third straight season, a different player from the area, San Diego High's Charde Houston, appeared on the Parade list. Candice's name was absent, not even fourth team.
Wiggins also was nosed out in the Ms. Basketball State Player of the Year decision once again, this time by Banks as well as Wiley-Gatewood.
Another of the finalists, Torrance Bishop Montgomery's Noelle Quinn, was considered behind Candice because Candice has outplayed Quinn all three times their teams have played each other. For the record, Candice says the winner should have been Quinn.
"I just thought this year that Candice was cheated out of some things," Bamford said. "But this year she's close to making some history. If she doesn't get what she deserves from Parade, McDonald's and others, then nobody ever deserves to get that type of recognition."
Houston, a 6-3 player who can shoot from the outside, is a good friend of Wiggins and there's some envy on both sides of the relationship. Houston would love to be on the type of team that Wiggins is on, competing for state titles and traveling to tournaments throughout the west, while Wiggins would love to be able to have one of those games in which the shackles are let loose.
Houston already has had a number of those games, including one last year of 71 points, and has been the state scoring leader for two straight seasons with averages well above 35 per game. Both Houston and Wiggins have a chance to break the career state scoring record of 3,446 points set in 1982 by the legendary Cheryl Miller at Riverside Poly. Houston is only 646 points shy. Wiggins is another 200 or so behind that.
"We get along so well and I think Charde is one of funniest people I know," Candice said. "Her whole game is awesome. For her to be this good for the short amount of time that she's played is hard to believe."
Some college recruiting lists have Houston as high as the top five in the nation for the Class of 2004 with Wiggins lower. Brand, who has covered high school athletes in San Diego for more than 20 years and is perhaps the most respected prep writer in the state, thinks highly of both, but would rank Wiggins higher.
"There's no better pure athlete I've ever seen in this section," Brand said. "Candice could play for the softball team tomorrow and she'd be brilliant. She could have 1,000 points or more in her career, but she rarely plays more than the first half, if that. And she isn't among the section's all-time assist leaders for nothing."
So is Candice Wiggins the best high school girls athlete in the nation this year? She'd laugh herself at such an assertion because she's seen Illinois basketball sensation Candace Parker up close and personal.
"She can dunk and do what none of us other girls can do," Wiggins said. "To be such an athletic tall girl and to have that soft touch is just so unique. The potential for her is scary."
But Parker, sadly, will probably miss the entire 2003-04 season with a knee injury she suffered in June. And when you look at what Wiggins has done in her second sport of volleyball, while Parker has been strictly basketball, the case for her gains merit.
On the volleyball court, Wiggins has had as many as 47 kills in one match. Her quickness at the net and the way she can cover so much space are the attributes volleyball coaches seem to point to the most.
"With volleyball, it's been funny," Wiggins said. "I had played it at this little school as a high school freshman and in my sophomore year I was asked to try out for a club. I had never thought about playing at a higher level, but I took a chance and before I knew it here I was as a 14-year-old playing on a under-18 team."
Last summer, in between the basketball-oriented trips, Wiggins also traveled for volleyball. She played at the Volleyball Festival in Sacramento with her club team and attended a week-long camp at Sandpoint, Idaho. As a college recruit in the sport, Wiggins was slotted at No. 29 in the nation by prepvolleyball.com. John Tawa, the editor of that website, has said that Candice might be as high as a top 10 national prospect if volleyball was her primary sport. Everyone knows basketball is more of a priority, so her volleyball recruiting ranking suffers a slight drop.
Wiggins continues to enjoy playing volleyball more and more each season and said she aims to play both volleyball and basketball in college.
While Candice's foul-marred outing at the state basketball finals last March left a sour taste in her mouth, the same day presented some sweetness for another Wiggins family member.
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| Former San Diego High standout Charde Houston is a good friend of Wiggins and one person that could always make her laugh. |
The year before, Alan was a a 6-6 junior at Poway High who averaged 19 points per game. But Angela noticed something was missing and got him into Horizon where he would be guided by coach Zack Jones, who had built a dominant program and who has played in the NBA. At Horizon, Alan's scoring average dropped by almost five points, but he was much better in other facets of his game, like rebounding and defense.
Before Alan even played a minute for Horizon, college coaches noticed a slightly taller (6-7) and more muscular Alan on the summer circuit. He became what's known, in recruiting world jargon, as a solid mid-major prospect. This means that the Dukes and Kentuckys aren't calling, but the Pepperdines, Utah States and USFs are. Alan signed with USF and after the season was over some were saying that Dons' coach Phil Mathews got a steal.
"He really blossomed this year at Horizon and if he continues what he's doing, Alan is going to be a terrific player in college," said Harold Abend, the San Diego Section correspondent last season for Cal-Hi Sports and who has covered CIF state championship events for more than 20 years. "Angela did the right thing by sending him to Horizon."
This brings us to Candice's own recruiting situation. It's going on hot-and-heavy at the time this story is being written, with some of the best women's basketball coaches in the nation coming to town for in-home visits. Candice said in a recent phone interview that the final five colleges on her list were Stanford, UCLA, Duke, USC and Arizona. Two weeks earlier, she also mentioned Tennessee, Connecticut and Texas as possibilities with the other five.
With Alan just up the road in San Francisco and with its tradition of having very successful volleyball-basketball athletes, two of the most recent being Kristin Folkl and Lindsey Yamasaki, Stanford would seem to be the favorite and Candice didn't deny it.
"I really do like both of the L.A. schools and I'm seriously looking at both of them," she said. "I am leaning to go there (Stanford), but it's not set in stone. I have to see everything and collect everything and then go from there." By the end of September, Candice was planning to have completed all of her official campus visits, and said she'd like to make "an Octoberish" decision.
As the California sun dipped behind a mountain to the west of the sprawling Rancho Capistrano Conference Center, the 12 best high school quarterbacks in the nation came out of a portable classroom and started walking back to their rooms. A few of them then noticed, with jaws ajar, a girl who looked like a fashion model being photographed just a few feet from the classroom.
"Who's that?" one of the quarterbacks asked. "That's Candice Wiggins," said a writer. "She's one of the top girls basketball players in the nation."
For most of the poses in the shoot, Candice wore tight blue jeans and an authentic San Diego Padres uniform, but cut long, like a dress.
The number on the jersey was 19, same as Tony Gwynn's. Someone then asked Angela about that number and she talked about how her family and the Gwynns have always been close. We don't want to get too personal, but let's just add that one of Tony's sons and Angela's oldest daughter, Cassandra, have been more than just friends.
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| Scott Kurtz | |
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| Candice Wiggins was selected Cal-Hi Sports Ms. Basketball at the conclusion of her senior season and reflecting back it was a wise choice considering she'll head to the WNBA as the Pac-10's all-time leading scorer. |
After all the rolls of film were used, Candice, her coach and her mother were treated to dinner at a Mexican restaurant where the first interviews for the story were done. Some of the more delicate questions, especially the ones involving her father, were left for phone calls at a later date where Candice and her mother could speak from the comfort of their home and not in a public place while rolling up another fajita.
Near the end of the last phone interview, Angela couldn't help but think about her late husband.
"When I found out that Candice was going to be on your cover, it just made my day," Angela said. "It was like a pay day for all that I went through and for all that Alan went through. Once he sees this, he's going to be up there with a big smile on his face."
And if somehow and some way Alan has been able to see all that's happened with his youngest daughter -- and all his other children, for that matter -- he's been up there with a big smile on his face for a long time.
Postscript: In the spring of 2004, Candice Wiggins was named Ms. Basketball in a close race over her good friend Charde Houston and Sa'de Wiley-Gatewood. Some felt it should have been Houston since she was the player that broke Cheryl Miller's scoring record, but Wiggins got the nod for her all-around brilliance. Four years later, Wiggins is the Pac-10's all-time leading scorer and a four-time All-American. On Sunday, Houston and her UConn teammates squared off against Stanford and Wiggins with the Cardinal coming away with a 82-73 NCAA semifinal win as the former La Jolla Country Day star pumped in 25 points. On Tuesday night, Stanford lost in the NCAA Womens title game, 64-48, against Candice Parker and eight-time national champion Tennessee. On Wednesday, Parker is expected to be the top pick of the WNBA Draft by the Los Angeles Sparks and Wiggins is expected to be the third or fourth player selected.
