Russell Wilson sent congratulatory messages to his little sister Anna Wilson after she and her college basketball team won the 2021 national championship.
The Seattle Seahawks quarterback is not the only talented athlete in the family. His younger sister plays for Stanford University’s women’s basketball team and helped them earn a monumental victory. According to the New York Times, the victory ended a 29-year title drought at the university.
Under the leadership of legendary head coach Tara VanDerveer, the Cardinals beat the Arizona Wildcats 54-53, marking their first championship win since 1992. After their win, Wilson gave his little sister a public shoutout on social media.
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“Drive. Will. Passion. Energy. You’ve earned it all through hard work, leadership, prayer, & immeasurable Faith,’ the NFL star wrote. “I Love You Anna Wilson.
I Love You Champ.”
In a 2020 essay published on ESPN Anna wrote about how her passion for sports grew after dealing with her father’s illness and death.
“Sports had become an outlet for me when my father was alive. It took my mind off him being sick. After he was gone, with my mom being at work all the time and my brothers being away, it filled some of that void,” she wrote. “So I lived at the gym.”
Field Gulls reported Wilson is a highly skilled defensive player and accounted for 5 points, 4 rebounds, and 3 assists in the title game. She was voted the Pac-12 Co-Defensive Player of the Year for the 2020-2021 season and was named to the Pac-12 All-Defensive team.
“We’re excited to win the COVID championship,” VanDerveer said in an interview on ESPN after the game according, to the NYT.
The Arizona Wildcats’ coach Adia Barnes shared an encouraging message after the team lost, according to SB Nation.
“This team is so special. I am so proud. We fought. We weren’t the best team in the tournament. No one thought we’d be here. We believed in each other. We didn’t play a great game, but we battled. We played our hearts out.
She added, “We came within one possession. It doesn’t come down to the last possession, it comes down to all the little things. The margin of error is so slim in a championship game. This is unchartered territory for the Wildcats. Our program hadn’t been to the tournament in 15 years, 16 years. We’ve never played in the championship game.”
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“But I’m not ashamed. Like, we made it to the championship game. We came within a basket of winning a national championship. So I’m proud. It’s hard. It does hurt. Like my heart’s broken. But I can’t ask for anything more of this team. To shoot 28% and come within one point, 27% from the three, lose by one point. We did some other things really well, so I’m proud. No one thought we would be playing a championship game.”
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