WNBA draft for Jordan Horston ‘very emotional’
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Jordan Horston wasn’t going to cry.
Well, that was the plan, anyway.
But the plan on the night of the WNBA Draft went out the window when Horston saw Sylvia Crawley appear on a small TV after she was selected No. 9 overall by the Seattle Storm. Personalized videos were made for all the players in attendance in New York, and Horston’s cousin, who was a star at North Carolina and in the WNBA, had a message for her.
“This is the day you’ve been dreaming about,” Crawley said in the video. “Continue to do the things that got you here. Stay humble, continue to be a student of the game, pay it forward to the fans and the little girls who look up to you and always, always remember to treat every game like it’s day one. You don’t have next, you got now.”
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Horston watched the video moments after being selected, and hearing those words from Crawley – who was her inspiration growing up – sent a wave of emotion over the former Lady Vols guard.
“It was very emotional,” Horston said. “Because it’s something that I’ve always dreamed of. She’s known that my whole life, she’s always been the person to say, ‘You got what it takes. You can do this.’ She always believed in me. To see it coming true, it’s a lot. It’s a lot of emotions.”
The WNBA Draft was a full circle moment for Horston and her close friends the 2019 class, like Stanford’s Haley Jones and South Carolina’s Aliyah Boston and Zia Cooke. Those four made up the top four-ranked recruits in their class and all four were drafted in the first round, Boston going No. 1 overall.
“I’m so happy, when everybody’s name got called, it was just like I’m so happy for them,” Horston said. “I was in there recording them while they was going up getting drafted, because we all started together and we all been working for this since we’ve been playing. Just to see you know see them make it, to see their families happy, it’s a very emotional type of experience, and it just brings the ultimate amount of joy to me.”
Horston’s parents, Leigh and Malika, and her older sister, Jazmin, were all with her. Before the draft started, they all held hands around the table to say a prayer.
“It means a lot to have my family there,” Horston said. “Because those were the people that was there when nobody else was. They had me, regardless of if I picked up a ball or not, and then they’ve seen to go through things, they’ve seen me struggle, they’ve seen me get knocked down and still get back up and was always there for me. So just to have them there, in that moment, to experience that with me – man, that’s something I’ll always remember.”
With the draft on a Monday, the WNBA has made the…
Read More: WNBA draft for Jordan Horston ‘very emotional’ 2023-04-22 05:36:18