Photos by John Fajardo
Graduating college can be a scary, uncertain time filled with new challenges and questions. Putting together resumes, saying goodbye to friends, trying to figure out the exact point of the degree you got; these are pedestrian university blues around this time of year, when Spring break is over, the days are growing longer, and finals are encroaching. Karina Figueroa, formerly of the Long Beach State women’s basketball team and just over a month from her graduation, is not worried about any of those things right now.
In the month and change since her final game in a 49ers jersey, Figueroa has been on a wild ride—working out at a pre-WNBA draft camp in San Antonio during the NCAA Final Four, hitting the weights and the hardwood during her last Spring Break as a college student, choosing an agent, and, most importantly, being invited to the Los Angeles Sparks’ training camp, beginning this Sunday.
It’s a heady string of developments that have left one of the school’s fiercest competitors a little short of breath. “I was completely shocked out of my mind,” she says of the call inviting her to training camp.
Still smarting from the disappointment over her team’s first-round Big West Tournament loss to UC Santa Barbara, Figueroa says she’d already begun to think about the next stage of her basketball career, most likely overseas. “I love this school,” she says, “but coming from Long Beach State the WNBA is a longshot.” Figueroa, despite a stellar career at the university (1,500 total points and 14.7 ppg) and a stint on the Peruvian national team, was also hindered by a record of two surgeries on the same ankle, which caused her to redshirt what would have been her senior year. Instead of packing her bags for Europe, Figueroa learned through an email sent to her coach, Jody Wynn, that she’d been invited to a WNBA pre-draft free agent camp, in San Antonio.
Putting aside plans of a relaxing Spring Break, Figueroa trained hard, and had a good showing in front of a host of WNBA coaches and GMs in Texas, then kept her fingers crossed she’d be taken in the draft (she and teammate Lauren Sims were the only two Big West players named to the 72-player draft list, from which the league’s 36 draft picks are culled). When her name wasn’t called, Figueroa says she was “a little bummed.”
However, within two minutes of the draft’s conclusion, she was talking to Sparks GM Penny Toler, a 49er Hall of Famer. “I pretty much just read her stats out to her,” says Figueroa, “told her I always saw her jersey up above me [in the Pyramid].” Toler said the Sparks wanted to see Figueroa in their training camp.
“Oh man I was freaking out,” Figueroa says. “I called my dad and he was screaming and yelling, I sent a text to everyone in my phone book.”
The excitement, in part, comes from the fact that an invitation to camp means more in the WNBA than in most leagues. Teams can carry 15 players on their training camp rosters, and 15 on their preseason rosters, virtually guaranteeing an invitation to camp means a spot on the preseason team. That preseason schedule will carry a date of special significance, as well, when the Sparks play an exhibition in the Pyramid on May 8.
The notion of seeing Figueroa in her old stomping grounds in a Sparks jersey had Figueroa’s Long Beach State coach, Jody Wynn, sounding more like a fan. “That would be absolutely incredible,” she says. “And I can tell you she’d have the biggest cheering section of any player on the team.”
Figueroa, of course, doesn’t mind all this hard work—training during her Spring Break, moving classes around to allow her to attend camp, wading through makeup tests and essays. “I love it,” she says. “This has been my dream since I could dribble a basketball.”
And so this Thursday, Figueroa will head to LA to prepare for the camp, which begins on the 22nd. It’s being held in the same practice facility the Lakers use, but Wynn says that 49er fans shouldn’t share Figueroa’s shock at the road the four-time All-Big West selection is on. “She’s one of the toughest point guards on the West Coast,” Wynn says. “She’s tough, she sees the floor, she shoots the three. I would have been surprised if she didn’t get into a camp.”
Both Figueroa and Wynn are hopeful that this will open the door to more pro opportunities for Long Beach State players in the future (and by extension, bring more top-tier talent to the university), but for now, the ball is in Figueroa’s court. And while the rest of this wild ride, signing contracts and playing pro ball, may be new for Figueroa, the game isn’t—nor is the task in front of her. In the conversation with Toler, Figueroa says the GM told her, “I have a good chance to make the team if I play my heart out.” As anyone who’s ever watched her can attest, that’s the only way she knows how.