Can Wooten help cop title for Jackets?
Saturday, March 25, 2006
By DICK BAKER
rbaker@repub.com

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Tiffany Wooten wants to be a police officer someday, so the American International College senior forward is already practicing the job requirement of keeping her cool in hot situations.

And that's exactly what she did when knocking down3-pointer with 2:10 left in Thursday night's game that enabled the Yellow Jackets to pull out to a seven-point lead and then a 70-58 victory over St. Cloud State in the Division II national semifinals.

Wooten says she won't be nervous at all for today's championship game against Grand Valley.

"Being a cop, you have to go out there with no fear," said Wooten, a criminal justice major. "On the court, you have to have that same attitude, no fear. All the nervousness has to go out the window."

Wooten has had a number of family members who were police officers. She has also been inspired by her 25-year-old brother, Jomar, who spent two years in Iraq before coming back last year."

"I look up to him greatly, he doesn't know that," Wooten said.

Wooten graduated from Randolph High School where her team had a couple of up-and-down years. But in her senior year, Randolph defeated Scituate for the Patriot League championship.

"And that's the way I want to end up my college career, going out on top," she said. "There's no way to go out, but giving it your all, no ifs, ands, or buts, leave it all out there."

One of Wooten's biggest high school rivals was East Bridgewater High School where current teammates Ashleigh Moore and Romara Pearsull played.

Wooten recalled the circumstances around her huge 3-pointer against St. Cloud.

"In the past, there were times when the coach would try and rely on upperclassmen to carry the team down the stretch," she said. "And there would be points in the game where the coach would go to one of the captains and seniors and say it's time for you to hit a big shot."

And that was the request Thursday.

"As everyone saw, the shot clock was winding down, and I just said that it has to go in. I was confident about it."

Wooten said that winning the national championship would make everything she had to do as a basketball player well worth the effort.

"I think back to my freshman year, all the early morning runs," she said. "It feels good to know that all that work could pay off in the ultimate goal, a national championship."

Wooten, an excellent defender, is second on the team and ninth in the Northeast-10 in rebounding with 7.2 per game this season. She has 759 career rebounds, eighth highest in AIC history.