{"id":1566,"date":"2011-09-22T14:30:44","date_gmt":"2011-09-22T18:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspiringathletes\/?p=1566"},"modified":"2011-10-04T17:16:08","modified_gmt":"2011-10-04T21:16:08","slug":"tamika-catchings-captures-first-wnba-mvp-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/09\/tamika-catchings-captures-first-wnba-mvp-award.html","title":{"rendered":"Tamika Catchings captures first WNBA MVP Award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click “Like” to share this with friends!<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 10 stellar seasons with the Indiana Fever, Tamika Catchings has claimed most major honors with two exceptions. She can now cross WNBA Most Valuable Player off the list, the league announced today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The news comes amid Catchings’ quest to attain her other primary goal: a WNBA Championship. The Fever defeated New York 2-1 in the first round of the playoffs and will kick off the Eastern Conference Finals tonight as it hosts the Atlanta Dream in a best-of-three series.<\/p>\n

Catchings has overcome many adversities in her life and says it was a season-ending injury as a senior at Tennessee that finally solidified her commitment to the Christian faith.<\/p>\n

“There was a huge chunk that was missing in my life that I was filling with basketball,” she said. “Basketball was my god. I couldn\u2019t go to church because I had practice and you lose that balance that you grew up with. So after my injury, I got back to going to church and then one thing after another, my faith continued to grow.”<\/p>\n

You can hear more from Catchings by watching a special video interview she gave Inspiring Athletes during the regular season:<\/p>\n

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Click “Like” to share this with friends! In 10 stellar seasons with the Indiana Fever, Tamika Catchings has claimed most major honors with two exceptions. She can now cross WNBA Most Valuable Player off the list, the league announced today. The news comes amid Catchings’ quest to attain her other primary goal: a WNBA Championship.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":418,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[356,387,3,4],"tags":[665,344,680,679,29,662],"class_list":["post-1566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-awards","category-basketball","category-christian-athletes","category-sports-news","tag-atlanta-dream","tag-tamika-catchings","tag-tamika-catchings-claims-wnba-mvp-award","tag-tennessee","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-playoffs"],"yoast_head":"\nTamika Catchings captures first WNBA MVP Award - Inspiring Athletes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/09\/tamika-catchings-captures-first-wnba-mvp-award.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tamika Catchings captures first WNBA MVP Award - Inspiring Athletes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Click “Like” to share this with friends! In 10 stellar seasons with the Indiana Fever, Tamika Catchings has claimed most major honors with two exceptions. She can now cross WNBA Most Valuable Player off the list, the league announced today. 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In 10 stellar seasons with the Indiana Fever, Tamika Catchings has claimed most major honors with two exceptions. She can now cross WNBA Most Valuable Player off the list, the league announced today. 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Chad\u2019s professional journey began at the University of Tulsa where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (1993) while working extensively in athletic media relations and serving as a sports editor for The Collegian. Since then, he has written extensively for such publications as Relevant, CCM, Christian Retailing, New Man, Charisma, Today\u2019s Christian, Ministries Today, Breakaway, Brio, Sports Spectrum, Christian Single, Faith & Friends, Sharing the Victory and Gospel Today. He has authored, co-authored or ghost written and edited 13 books including Life in the Fairway (New Leaf Press), Glory of the Games (Cross Training), Wrestling with God (River Oak), Spiritual Journeys (Relevant) and the four-part Fellowship of Christian Athletes Core Value Series; Excellence, Teamwork, Serving and Integrity (Regal Books). Chad is currently working on five new books including Sooner Legacy, Husker Legacy and Lessons From Sooner Football (Cross Training) as well as The Faith of Stock Car Racing (Judson Press). When he's not writing, Chad lends his efforts to various independent television and film projects. He was the coordinating producer for Choosing Life (2010) and Life Happens (2011). Chad is currently serving as producer on a forthcoming documentary about Super Bowl champion Brian Kinchen. Chad and his wife Amy live in Broken Arrow, Okla., with sons Lance (September 2003), Cole (February 2008) and Quinn (February 2011).","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/author\/cbonham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/418"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1566"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1585,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566\/revisions\/1585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}