Chat with Candice Dupree

The Chicago Sky just had a chat session with Candice Dupree on their message board. I’m not really sure if the message board is a best tool for a chat session. Maybe more training is needed by the Sky to make it efficient.

Here’s some of what we learned:

• Candice started playing basketball at about the age of 10. She did play basketball before college.
• Candice has a fraternal twin sister. Candice is the younger of the two. They are complete opposites.
• On being compared to Tim Duncan. – She doesn’t know who first started comparing her to Tim Duncan, but it was first brought up during college.
• Candy Jo isn’t her favorite nickname, “It started out as a joke last season and now I'm stuck w/ it for life.”
• Her high school number was 24. When she got to college, 24 was taken, and 2 was also taken. She decided to go with number 4.
• Prefers Philly cheese steak sandwich over Chicago deep dish pizza.
• She doesn’t go out much in Chicago, except to shop on Michigan Avenue. She does not have a favorite shoe.
• She’s never been on the Chicago Sky message board before today.
• Listens to pretty much any kind of music.
• On fans: ” Thanks, it's good to know that I have fans all over the world. I need to go to Brazil one day. I've heard it's beautiful!! “
• Still trying to figure out her dream car.
• Doesn’t follow the NBA much except for individual players. Heard that the Bulls did well.
  

Professional

• She is proud of being an all-star for 2 years in a row.
• What she thinks about before the game: “I just think about the game and how aggressive I'm going to be. Try to focus on knocking down shots.”
• About playing against Kamesha – “Well we didn't really get to play "against" each other. Our teams played each other. It was neat seeing her out on floor, but this time on the opposing team. She played really well so I was happy for her.”
• On the Detroit game (July 10, 2007) – “I thought I played like trash...lol. Umm the highs were that competed really well w/ Detroit. The lows, we weren't able to get stops are crucial points in the game.”
• One word to describe Stacy Dales – hilarious.
• When asked how the team felt about playing the Fever and Shock some many times in a row – “Intimidated...NEVER. We're excited about rising to the challenge and looking forward to proving ourselves.”
• She doesn’t come out after games because she has to do things like deal with the media and other stuff.
  

Temple and Dawn Staley

• Misses the camaraderie of the team and coach.
• Staley prepared Dupree physically and mentally for the playing in the league
• She stays in touch with Dawn Staley, and will see her at the all star game.
• Coach Chaney would sometimes go to the women’s basketball practices and do some coaching.
• Play center in college.
  

She thanked all her fans at the end of the hour. Her sister was also online and there was some interplay between both of them. From the chat, you get the feeling she is a very hard working and humble young lady.

There were a lot of unanswered questions. Some of them were about playing in Poland, players on the Sky, and young ladies asking for advice about how to get to the WNBA. It would have been nice to get some answers to those kind of questions, but the chat was only one hour long, and I’m still not sure this is the best method to hold a chat (although I am not sure what is the best method). Now, it would be nice if the Sky web person or someone in the communications department would go through the topic, come up with a list of unanswered questions. See if they could get Candice to answer them, and then just post a message with the answers or put together some article answering the questions.