Background

Here’s a clue to the kind of athletic family from which Marshevet Hooker hails: as a middle-school basketball player, she wore number 33 to imitate her mother, Marvetta, who played college basketball for St. Mary’s University in San Antonio. Father Ricky played there, too, and was good enough in 1983 to be drafted in the sixth round by the San Antonio Spurs. And her only sister, Destinee, is a two-time NCAA Champion in the high jump, in 2006 and 2007.

Even two-on-one, Marshevet says, she and her sister have never beaten their father in a game of basketball. (“Never once,” she says emphatically.) Track might be another matter. Marshevet had a fine 2007 indoor season in her debut as a pro, winning the Reebok Boston Indoor Games and the Tyson Invitational on her way to a third-place finish at the AT&T USA Indoor Track & Field Championships, but in the outdoor season was knocked out of the US championships in the 100-meter semifinals. In the offseason, she began training under 2000 Olympic 4x100-meter relay gold medalist Jon Drummond.

Then, at the 2008 Reebok Grand Prix, Marshevet blasted to a second-place finish at 100 meters behind only Veronica Campbell-Brown, the reigning World Champion, in a huge personal best of 10.94 seconds. "I'm more excited about (track) than I've ever been," she told the San Antonio News-Express a few days later. "... I'm feeling so comfortable right now."