Seattle Seahawks Super Bowl champion quarterback Russell Wilson's younger sister Anna helped the United States' U17 basketball team win the 2014 FIBA U17 World Championship for Women this weekend in the Czech Republic. Team USA beat Spain Sunday by just a two-point margin to achieve its third championship in a row.
Anna Wilson comes from a family of star athletes; both her father and grandfather were two-sport collegiate athletes and her mother ran track - not the least to mention her older brother Russell Wilson's success as a quarterback in the NFL. Anna had 17 assists in the Division I national championship AAU game as an eighth grader, and she averaged over 16 points her freshman year on varsity at Collegiate High School in Richmond, Virginia.
"I truly believe that she will be an All-American point guard at some big university and go on to be a Candace Parker -- a superstar-type basketball player," Russell says of his young sister. ESPN W reports that Anna has already received offers to play basketball at Wake Forest, Maryland, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Marquette, and that she recently gave verbal commitment to play for Stanford.
While she did not make the USA women's team last year, Anna was determined to represent her country in the 2014 FIBA World Championship U17 tournament. With older brother Russell watching in the stands, Anna pursued her dream with much enthusiasm and earned a spot on this year's roster. "I believe when you're playing for a spot on a team, people will try to show how good they are, but I wanted to show how good I was at making my teammates look great. For a point guard, no stat is more important than the assist," she wrote in a blog post upon making the team earlier this year.
Team USA went on to win the championship this weekend in the Czech Republic with Anna's help, defeating Spain by only two points in the final quarter.
"She's reaching for the stars, and she'll touch them and keep going," Russell said of his younger sister earlier this year.
