Kentucky basketball's all-time leading scorer, Valerie Still, learning to live with life after hoops

This article first appeared in the Rise Up Sports Media Magazine – Winter 2022 Issue 04.

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If you ask the majority of Kentucky fans which player has scored more points on the hardwood than any Wildcat in history, Dan Issel (1966-70) would likely come back as the consensus. The Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer finished with 2,138 points in just three years on varsity in Lexington, establishing himself as a legend within the Big Blue Nation. Another popular response might be Kenny “Sky” Walker and his 2,080 points or Jack “Goose” Givens and his 2,038. But none of them would be correct.

The answer is Valerie Still, who finished with an incredible 2,763 points over her four seasons with Kentucky women’s basketball from 1979-83. Even if she didn’t play her senior season, she’d still have finished with 2,063 points as a Wildcat, fourth-most all-time. Still helped lead Kentucky to a 1982 SEC Championship victory, which wouldn’t happen for another 40 years until the 2021-22 squad broke that drought in the spring.

In October 2021, Still was elected into the University of Kentucky Distinguished Hall of Fame, cementing her legacy as one of the school’s most impactful people, athlete or not. It was the highest honor that Still says she could ever receive from UK. Being inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame or UK Athletic Hall of Fame didn’t compare.

Still is far more proud of what she’s done off the floor since leaving Kentucky than what she did on it.

“For me that’s the highest honor I can get at UK,” Still told KSR earlier this year about being inducted into the University of Kentucky Distinguished Hall of Fame. “It’s not just the basketball. I was touched by that. When I came back I said this is gonna be the last go-around in Lexington in terms of who Valerie Still was for Kentucky… I just wanted to close the door on it because I’m not just UK’s all-time leading scorer or the 1982 SEC (champion). Most people don’t know about that anyway.”

Outside of basketball, Still has been a constant advocate for multiple important causes. She founded the Valerie Still Foundation to help young people and even launched a coffee company, STILL Java, that helps provide for women and children in underdeveloped countries. She holds a master’s degree in African and African American studies and is in the process of finishing her Ph.D. in humanities. Still travels all over the country to speak in front of crowds while making positive impacts on the lives of others.

That is the person Still seeks to be at this point in her life– someone who is constantly providing cheerful energy, not someone who put a ball in a hoop. Out in public, she wears the same perfect smile no matter where she is or who she’s talking to. Her patented all-white outfits make her feel approachable with a comforting presence, even if she does stand over most at 6-foot-2.

She’ll never turn down an opportunity to learn about someone else. There are no winners and losers in fun and enlightening conversations with Still.

“I’m at a point in my life where I’ve kinda disconnected from this whole sports world and all that,” Still said. “For me it’s — I don’t want to say superficial because I think the sport got me to where I’m at now — there’s way more important things than sports.”

This past spring, Still collaborated with Rise Up Sports Media founder Tonia Witt to help promote excellence and inspire a younger generation of female athletes. The inaugural “Still I Rise” award was named in Still’s honor for the first annual Rise Up Sports Media Awards. But it’s not an award that solely highlights on-court or on-field success.

“In sports sometimes, somebody’s gotta win, somebody’s gotta lose, somebody’s winning the trophy, and I told Tonia (Witt) I’m not into that,” Still said. “But if my award can be about resiliency and determination and altruistic service, then I’m in. And she said okay. I said, can we award mine to one of the girls in western Kentucky? She said okay.”

It wasn’t just one girl, though. The “Still I Rise” award was presented to a trio of high schoolers: Anna Whitaker (Graves County), Khloe Lamb (Hopkins County), and Abigail Garrett (Dawson Springs), girls from western Kentucky who sacrificed their time and effort to help their areas recover from the devastating tornado destruction that took place in Dec. 2021.

Acknowledging the pressure, then overcoming it

Still has faced plenty of pressure during her lifetime. From starring at Kentucky, where she finished with 96 wins to just 24 losses, to continuing her basketball career overseas and then coming back to the United States. Eventually, though, Still reached a moment where she was no longer defined by basketball — and she’s grown to be perfectly fine with that.

“At a certain point I was none of those things. I couldn’t play anymore so my knees are bad. So I went through this whole thing like who am I, man?” Still said matter-of-factly. “I’m not a basketball player anymore. I really just went through a period of shedding all that and just coming to a point where I feel good about just being — like I can sit here and not have to impress anybody.”

For a lot of people, that realization can take decades to break through. For some, it may never happen. With the presence of social media, it’s much more difficult in the year 2022 to not try and impress someone than it was in 1982. There are way more eyes and too many voices. But that’s actually one of the reasons Still recently has returned to UK as a regular visitor. She felt a responsibility to, not necessarily influence, but to be a guiding voice for the likes of Rhyne Howard and Kyra Elzy.

Howard, who finished her college career with the second-most points in UK basketball history at 2,290 and is now a WNBA All-Star, dealt with more pressure during her four years than most people will experience throughout their entire lives. Elzy, now in her third year as the WBB program’s head coach, was unexpectedly tossed into the fire a week before her debut and criticized before she could even find her footing.

“I said I want to go meet (Rhyne) because she was going through a lot, the team was going through a lot, they were changing coaches, and I just wanted to support her and say don’t let it stress you out, just chill, enjoy yourself,” Still said. “And I think she appreciated that.”

During the 2021-22 season, Howard, Elzy, and the Wildcats got off to a demoralizing start. Halfway through the SEC schedule, Kentucky was sitting on a 9-11 overall record and not even close to sniffing an NCAA Tournament berth. But something clicked with the team from there. Under Elzy’s guidance, UK rattled off 10 consecutive wins, beating three ranked opponents in the SEC Tournament (including No. 1 South Carolina, which won the national title a few weeks later) and being crowned league champions.

After the season was over, Elzy admitted what everyone outside of the program already believed: there were plenty of rocky moments throughout the year. Howard was the one dealing with the most pressure, too. She’d been heralded as the future No. 1 pick since her sophomore season. Heading into the SEC Tournament this past spring, Howard hadn’t won any sort of major team championship. That stress will weigh on anyone as the clock continues to tick.

Luckily, Kentucky came out on top, and fulfilled that void for Howard. But without even knowing she was thinking it, did Howard want to win for her team’s sake, or was it to satisfy the outside noise?

“We talked about this when I met with Rhyne, because I felt that what people do to you, they put so much pressure on you,” Still said. “They put you up here, and that only sets you up, that’s not who you are, they don’t care about — they want entertainment. They’re living vicariously through you, the athletes. And then you buy into that and at some point and time it gets overwhelming, you can’t live up to that.”

The situation for Elzy was similar in that there were high expectations she had to live up to, but Still also notes that coaching won’t be nearly as stress-free for Elzy as it might have been for previous head coaches. Elzy’s leash is much shorter.

“With Kyra Elzy, (I came back to UK) because she went through what she went through. Women of color, players of color have had a hard time getting in positions of leadership,” Still added. “They’re having this discussion in the NFL, too. And so just to let her know that I’m hoping it goes well, don’t get caught up in it. Just be you.

“With Kyra, it’s extremely important she does well. Because she doesn’t get a second chance.”

So far, Elzy has exceeded some early expectations — winning the program’s first SEC Tournament title in 40 years was certainly not in the crystal ball when UK was 9-11. But that’s exactly when things began to shift. Once expectations reached a low, the pressure began to fade. From there, Elzy encouraged Howard and the rest of her teammates to play freely. The ‘Cats had nothing to lose at that point.

“When they really just said the hell with it, we don’t care, everybody’s done trashed us out. They were themselves and they did what they did,” Still said.

Deep down, that’s the message Still is sending out: be yourself, ignore the noise, and have fun. If you can do that, you can become the realized person of who you want to be, whatever that might be. College-aged Valerie Still is arguably the greatest basketball player to ever suit up for Kentucky, but she’s far more content being the current version of herself — the one she’s comfortable with.