Personal
Catchings is the daughter of former NBA player Harvey Catchings. Her sister Tauja also played basketball at Stevenson and the University of Illinois, was drafted by the WNBA and now plays in Sweden. Tamika's cousin Bobby is a starting forward for Eastern Illinois University's basketball team. Tamika majored in Sports Management at the University of Tennessee.
Catchings helped Stevenson High School to Illinois's IHSA Div. AA State Championship in her Sophomore year in 1995 under head coach Frank Mattucci before moving to Texas. During her sophomore year at Stevenson she won Illinois Ms. Basketball (which at the time was the youngest player to ever win the award). In addition to leading Duncanville High to the state basketball title in her senior season (she played only two years at Duncanville after moving from the Chicago area), she also led the volleyball team to its only state title as a junior.
Catchings was born with a hearing disability; she wore a hearing aid as a young girl. In 2000, she was honored with the Reynolds Society Achievement Award by the world-famous Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston. Catchings is a leading figure in the Indianapolis community, having started the Catch the Stars Foundation, Inc. which helps disadvantaged youth achieve their dreams. On June 24, 2008 Catchings was awarded the Dawn Staley Community Leadership Award for her work in the Indianapolis community with her foundation.
Catchings refereed a game of 3-on-3 basketball played by Barack Obama along with local students from Kokomo, Indiana at the Maple Crest Middle School on April 25, 2008. Fever teammate Alison Bales also played on Obama's team.
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Famous quotes containing the word personal:
“I want relations which are not purely personal, based on purely personal qualities; but relations based upon some unanimous accord in truth or belief, and a harmony of purpose, rather than of personality. I am weary of personality.... Let us be easy and impersonal, not forever fingering over our own souls, and the souls of our acquaintances, but trying to create a new life, a new common life, a new complete tree of life from the roots that are within us.”
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“Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility. Nothing adds such dignity to character as the recognition of one’s self-sovereignty; the right to an equal place, everywhere conceded—a place earned by personal merit, not an artificial attainment by inheritance, wealth, family and position.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)