« Women’s Basketball 2007-08

Candice Wiggins

School
Stanford University
Position
Guard
Major
Communications
Ht
5'11
PPG
20.2
RPG
4.6
APG
3.1

Classroom

Wiggins is on pace to earn her bachelor of arts degree in communications in June 2008.

Character

Wiggins’ character speaks volumes to those around her. On the court, she has been a vital member of the Cardinal women’s basketball team the past three-plus years, leading the team in scoring and being its major playmaker. Even with all of her succes both on the court and in the classroom, Wiggins remains an easygoing, cheerful personality and a model representative of not only the women’s basketball program, but also of Stanford athletics. While she has emerged as the “voice” of the Stanford players, Wiggins is an encouraging force to her teammates as well as everything one could want as a leader. She has also overcome her share of obstacles both on and off the court. As a child, she lost her father, Alan Wiggins, when he passed away at the age of 32. As the leader of the Stanford team, she was hampered last season by injuries, but continued to work through the pain and discomfort to help lead the Cardinal to a 29-5 mark and seventh consecutive Pac-10 title, be the team’s leading scorer with 16.9 points a game, and earn Kodak/WBCA and Associated Press All-America honors for the third year in a row.

Community

Along with her teammates, Wiggins takes part in many community outreach and community service projects. Wiggins and her teammates have participated in a mentoring program for young girls from the East Side School Shoot For the Stars Program. In this project, Wiggins is among those who meets with the students and plays basketball, writes poetry, sets personal goals, and in general provides a positive influence in the lives of the young girls. Wiggins and her teammates also make periodic visits to the young patients at the Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, encouraging and socializing with children who are fighting illness and injury. Wiggins and the rest of the team also participate in a pen pal program with elementary-aged students at La Entrada School in Menlo Park, Calif. In this program, Wiggins and each teammate have their own pen pal that they correspond with during the season, and near the end of the season, the students are special guests at a Cardinal home basketball game.

Competition

Wiggins is one of the most decorated college basketball players in the game today, having earned All-America recognition in each of the last three years from Kodak/WBCA and the Associated Press. This year she has been named to the mid-season candidates list for both the Wooden and Naismith Awards. In her first two seasons, Wiggins was also named the Pac-10 Player of the Year, and in all three of her seasons so far, has earned All-Pac-10 honors. She has been a Wade Trophy finalist the past two seasons, while also being among the candidates for the Wooden Award each of the past three years. She was the second-fastest player in Stanford history to reach the 1,000-point mark, needing only 54 games to do so. For her career, Wiggins is currently the all-time leader at Stanford with a scoring average of 18.8 points per game, is fifth with 1,842 career points, and is second in three-pointers made (208). Wiggins also boasts two of the school’s top 10 single-season scoring totals, pouring in 740 points as a sophomore in 2005-06 (second on the list), and 612 points as a freshman in 2004-05 (sixth). Her success the past three seasons was not just limited to collegiate play, as in the summer of 2007, Wiggins helped lead the USA Basketball Under-21 team to a gold medal at the Under-21 World Championships in Moscow, Russia, and the U.S. Pan American Games team to a gold medal at the Pan Am games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She also earned an invitation to camp in September 2007 with the USA Basketball senior national team, playing in a pair of exhibition wins over Australia. This season, as a senior, Wiggins is widely recognized as the leader and heart of the Stanford basketball team.