While I have your attention (I'm stalling getting on the stationary bike), I never saw this Times article which is noteworthy about her departure. Yeah, I'm mixing 2 threads.
"If a longing for basketball re-emerges,
there is even a chance, Elena and her father said, that she will want to return to UConn next year. She is still a teenager, just turned 19, trying to sort through a teenager’s frame of reference, trying to figure out where she fits into a sporting world in which she was a basketball player of such towering skill that she received her first college scholarship offer when she was in seventh grade.
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"She enrolled at UConn in June, but several days later, returned home to suburban Wilmington, crying, telling her parents, “I can’t do this.”
She was confused, distraught. Everyone at UConn had treated her well, but she had seen the level of commitment required to play basketball and had realized she did not possess the necessary dedication.
“Everyone was so upset, and all I could think was, how do you think I feel to possess this God-given talent and not put forth the effort?” Delle Donne later told reporters.
Geno Auriemma, UConn’s coach, said he would hold her scholarship through the summer. He urged her to take her time in evaluating her decision. It did not change. In late August, Delle Donne enrolled at Delaware and joined the volleyball team."
At 18, Elena Delle Donne Was Burned Out on Basketball
