Forsyth a WNBA prospect

Rebekah Forsyth can add to her list of accomplishments as a Rose-Hulman athlete. After outlasting several revisions, she is still the only Division III athlete on the WNBA’s final 81-player draft prospect list. The list contains female collegiate athletes who the WNBA are likely to strongly consider for the upcoming draft on April 4 in Cleveland, Ohio during the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championships.

When asked about whether or not she was considering pursuing a career in the WNBA, the senior mechanical engineer replied, “I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and then I realized thinking wasn’t getting me anywhere, so I started praying about it too… I came to the conclusion about two and a half weeks ago that this is something that I seriously would like to pursue.”

Photo: Rose-Hulman News Rebecca Forsyth hopes to soon play professional basketball in the WNBA. Forsyth was the only NCAA Division III athlete listed on the WNBA’s draft.

There are 13 teams in the WNBA and three rounds in the draft, meaning that a total of 39 athletes will be drafted from the 81-person list. However, other basketball leagues, including several overseas, use the WNBA’s list to recruit new players as well.

According to Rose-Hulman Women’s Basketball coach Jon Prevo the WNBA, much like the NBA, keeps an eye on the most impressive players in college basketball. Until recently, however, they only really considered Division I athletes. Now, both professional basketball associations are looking beyond Division I into the NAIA and NCAA Division II and III.

Before being signed, players attend training camps where team personnel watch them scrimmage. However, “you can be invited to someone’s training camp without being drafted,” stated Prevo. At the time of this interview, Forsyth had not been invited to the first of these camps, which will be hosted during the Women’s NCAA Final Four at the beginning of April.

There had been indications of the WNBA’s interest in Forsyth throughout the women’s basketball season. “At our Webster game over in St. Louis, right before tip-off, there was a young lady from the WNBA that came up and introduced herself… they gave her a list of players to go and see from the area she’s from and Rebekah was on that list,” remarked Prevo, who also encountered scouts later in the year. “The coach at Transylvania told me that right before we went down there, someone from the WNBA had called him and asked if they could come to the game and he said ‘They’ve got to be coming to see your girls’… but no one ever came up [to me] so I don’t know if they were there or not.”

Kevin Lanke, Rose-Hulman’s Sports Information Director, also said that the WNBA has contacted him three times this year for statistics on Rebekah from the beginning, middle, and end of this year’s season.

The organization’s interest continued through the end of the season. “The Los Angles Sparks had contacted me and I sent tapes out on Rebekah,” added Prevo.

Forsyth plans to pursue a career in basketball while keeping her education as a fall-back plan. “I wanted Rebekah to understand that, if she continues to play, whether it be here in the states or overseas, basketball after she finishes here at Rose-Hulman, is [at best], five to eight years, career-wise,” noted Prevo. “Even in the WNBA, you’re not making the millions of dollars that you’re making in some of the other professional sports. I said we need to evaluate [this option] and she needs to probably sit down with her family and talk about the time she’s spent here and the money she’s spent at Rose-Hulman… I kind of played the devil’s advocate with her.”

“I’ve had two offers all the way up to the point were all I had to do is say ‘yes’ and that’s where I would work, but I declined both of them,” said Forsyth.

But Rebekah is excited regardless. Being the only representative of Division III on the list, she was shocked when she saw her name on it. “[It’s] definitely amazing, it was super cool when I first found out. I just sat in the chair and I was like ‘Are you serious? Is this a joke?’ It just made me happy”.

Of course, she’s not the only one excited about it. She mentioned how her dad always believed in her. “Both my parents are really excited. My dad’s kind of a dreamer, so he, since I was in junior high, said ‘You should work really hard and maybe you’ll get a chance someday’ so when I told him he said ‘I told you to work really hard!’… [But] I really haven’t told a lot of people. I’d say that I could count on one hand how many people I’ve said anything to. But they were really excited, the few people I did tell. They were pretty ecstatic.” According to her, she was being looked at during high school by recruiters from schools with bigger basketball programs than Rose, some of which were Division I. But in the end she chose Rose. “I thought about Rose … whether I would seriously pursue this basketball thing. I started thinking about it and started praying and I looked at different colleges and after praying I just knew that this was where I was supposed to go.”

Rebekah, however, finds herself in a unique position. Seeing as how she’ll be graduating soon with a Mechanical Engineering Degree from the top program in the country, her options are not exactly limited, like many graduates of Rose. “There’s still [jobs] that I could have interviews in with [a company] if I choose to call them up and say will you still want to interview [me].” Right now, she’s waiting to see if she’ll be invited to any camps where she can be seen in action.

Even now Prevo continues to be modest when it comes to Rebekah’s level of skill. “I can’t take any credit for what Rebekah has done and the position she’s put herself in. She’s done this, this started way before she even arrived at Rose-Hulman.” But he doesn’t forget to mention that he is always there for her, to support her, especially if it’s courtside of a WNBA game.