Tamika Raymond
From Hoopedia
Tamika Maria Raymond (born April 12, 1980, in Dayton, Ohio) is a professional basketball player. She currently plays for the Minnesota Lynx in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). She was known as Tamika Williams before marrying former University of Minnesota Duluth basketball player Ben Raymond in April 2007.
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High School
Raymond started playing organized basketball at age 9 in the Dayton Lady Hoopstars AAU program, played on Lady Hoopstar teams which won one national AAU age group championship and finished in top four twice.
Raymond had a stellar basketball career at Chaminade-Julienne, a Catholic high school in Dayton, Ohio. She was named the 1997 and 1998 Ohio Player of the Year and was named in the 1997-98 Associated Press girls Division I All-Ohio high school basketball team. She was also named "Ohio's Miss Basketball" by the Associated Press and chosen by a state-wide media panel.
After graduating from Chaminade-Julienne, Raymond was heavily recruited by numerous collegiate teams. In 1997, she was the subject of a seven-page feature in a November 1997 issue of a Sports Illustrated magazine article on the pressures of being recruited.
College
Raymond attended the University of Connecticut, majored in interpersonal communications, and served as President of UConn's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. From 1998 to 2002 she was part of the UConn basketball team, which became NCAA Division I National Championship teams in 2000 and 2002 under coach Geno Auriemma.
She completed her four-year collegiate career in 2002 with averages of 10.6 points per game and 5.8 rebounds per game. She finished as UConn's all-time leader in field goal percentage at 70.3% (560-for-797). She also holds the Huskies' top four single-season marks for field goal percentage, ranked 14th on UConn's all-time scoring list with 1,402 points, and finished 10th all-time in rebounding (763).
In recent years, she has been spending the WNBA off-season working on getting a master's degree in sports management at Ohio State University, while serving as an Assistant Coach for their women's basketball team.
WNBA
During the 2002 WNBA Draft, the Minnesota Lynx selected Raymond in the first round, sixth overall. In 2003, she set a WNBA single-season record for field-goal accuracy, with a percentage of 66.8%.
Raymond is currently the captain of the Lynx and hold several franchise records.
