When the final cuts were made, Hammon was on the Liberty roster. But for the first four years, she remained in the shadows of team veterans, playing as a reserve (a substitute player who stays on the bench until a replacement is needed).

“They weren’t planning on keeping me,” said Hammon. “I just kept turning it from one day—stay another day, stay another day—to eight years.”

Discontent with not being a starter, Hammon spent the winter before the 2003 season working out in the weight room and revamping her diet. Despite a great start to the season and setting a new WNBA record for points made by a reserve, she was benched with an injury to her right knee 11 games into the season. She spent the next nine months doing grueling rehabilitation to strengthen the muscles around her rebuilt knee.

According to Hammon, those nine months were both physically and emotionally trying. “When you have something you love so much taken away from you, it kind of refocuses everything about your life,” she said. “When you’ve done your physical preparation, the mental preparation seems to follow. You can’t fool yourself. You know when you’ve put in enough time and you know if you’re doing your hardest, to the best of your capabilities. With the knee injury, I just went in and did my rehab and allowed myself to heal mentally as well as physically.”

The Making of a Leader.
When she returned the next season, she took on the starting point guard position and became team co-captain. “I’m not somebody who’s going to be screaming, yelling rah-rah in your face all the time,” said Hammon about her leadership style. “I think it’s important that the girls know that you care about them as people. Establish relationships. Let everything else on the court happen. As a leader, you make sure that everybody’s good and in good spirits around you. Try to keep everybody’s heads up and moving in the right direction. Get people to play hard.”