Chester achieves her ‘Dream’

For Felicia Chester, the 2011 WNBA Draft was about tempered expectations.

"On draft day I was just telling myself, ‘Don't get your hopes up,'" she said.

She spent the day at her house, watching the draft on TV with her fiancé, the Bears' Cory Wooton, and one of her best friends. They all quickly found out her modesty was unwarranted, however. Chester was drafted by the Minnesota Lynx at no. 14 overall, the second pick of round two. She became the highest-drafted DePaul player ever, and the seventh Blue Demon to be selected in the WNBA draft.

"Honestly, I was so excited when I saw my name up on the screen," Chester said. "Some people were telling me [before the draft] I might get drafted, I might not get drafted…I was pretty much in shock when I saw my name at the beginning of the second round."

Chester said she had received no indication from any teams prior to the draft that they were interested in her.

"After our season ended was when I sent my information into the WNBA," she said. "I had never heard anything from a specific team or anything."

Did she even know a team might be interested in picking her early in the second round?

"I had no clue at all," Chester said.

After being taken by the Lynx—who selected former UConn star Maya Moore with the first overall pick—Chester's draft rights were traded to the Atlanta Dream in exchange for a 2012 second-round pick, and the draft rights to Rachel Jarry, an Australian forward whom Atlanta drafted four slots after Chester was taken.

"It's always been my dream to play in the WNBA," Chester said. "It's not like I had a preference of where I was going. I'm glad I'm going to Atlanta. I'm really excited about it."

There was a bit of confusion, however.

"I got drafted by Minnesota, so right after I got drafted I didn't know if a coach was supposed to call me. I didn't know what was supposed to happen," she said. "So I was waiting around all day for Minnesota to call me…then I found out I was being traded to Atlanta and it all made sense then."

Chester said she was contacted by Dream Head Coach Marynell Meadors the next morning. She begins her post-DePaul career on May 15 when training camp starts, leaving the college game forever.

"Felicia Chester is one of the best players and best people I have ever been blessed to coach," DePaul Head Coach Doug Bruno said in a statement after the draft. "She is also one of the totally most underrated. Our DePaul success this season was a direct result of all the ‘little things' that Felicia contributed to our DePaul team."

Chester finished her senior season second on the team in scoring with 11.4 points per game, and first in rebounding with 6.6 boards per game. She started all 36 games this year and became DePaul's 26th 1,000-point scorer by scoring 19 against the University of Connecticut earlier this season.

Fellow Blue Demon seniors Deirdre Naughton and Sam Quigley went undrafted.

Bruno said before the draft that getting picked in the third round was a possibility for Quigley, while Naughton would likely start her professional career in Europe.

Of the six previous DePaul drafted players, three—Kim Williams, Lenae Williams and Allie Quigley—have played at least one season in the WNBA. In addition, three more former Blue Demons have made the league, but were undrafted: Tawona Alhaleem, Latasha Byears and Mfon Udoka.

But as the highest-drafted DePaul player, Chester has at least one thing on all of them.

"It's an honor to have achieved that," she said. "I really don't feel like I can take all the credit. I feel like DePaul and coach Bruno have helped me grow as a player so much over the last five years.

"I'm just so grateful to DePaul for helping me achieve that."