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By Jose Alfredo Flores
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, February 26, 2001; Page D05

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- Jackie Stiles just passed Chamique Holdsclaw. Along the way, she has passed Cheryl Miller and some of the best women's college basketball players ever. The Southwest Missouri State star is on the brink of breaking Mississippi Valley State's Patricia Hoskins's mark of 3,122 career points and becoming the game's most prolific scorer.

Chasing this record, and the media publicity that has surrounded it, is not what Stiles had in mind when she first picked up a basketball as a toddler growing up in Claflin, Kan.

"I never, ever imagined that this would happen," said Stiles, who has 3,103 points after scoring 24 in the No. 20 Bears' 89-85 overtime win Sunday at Wichita State.

"This all happened so fast, so quick. It wasn't a goal of mine when I started playing this sport. I just love the game of basketball so much. This has been a great ride, and I don't want it to end."

Averaging a nation's-best 31 points per game is nothing new for the senior guard, who led the nation in scoring her junior year (27.8) and was second her sophomore year (25.7).

"Jackie has handled the attention by not getting caught up in it," teammate and roommate Carly Deer said. "She is not the type of person who looks at the box score after the game to see how many more points she needs -- she is actually the total opposite. She has handled the attention great and tried diverting it by concentrating on winning, not points."

Earlier this month, Stiles was nominated for an ESPY award for best women's college basketball player, and she remains a Naismith player of the year hopeful and is aiming for her third consecutive Missouri Valley Conference player of the year award. Such accolades have grabbed the attention of pro scouts such as Washington Mystics General Manager Melissa McFerrin, who played college basketball at Missouri.

"I'm fairly familiar with Jackie," said McFerrin, whose team has the No. 9 pick in the upcoming WNBA draft. "I've watched her play since she was in high school with her AAU teams and I saw her [recently] with SMS. I think Jackie is really intriguing in our draft this year because she is a bona fide scorer that also has a very adequate defensive game and that doesn't always come in the same package."

Each year at SMS, Stiles has added more to her repertoire of offensive and defensive skills. Coach Cheryl Burnett forced Stiles to shoot off the pass during her freshman year. The following season, Stiles developed her defensive game and she improved her dribbling by playing point guard last season.

In the months leading up to the Sydney Olympics, Stiles competed with the best players in the women's game when she was selected for the United States' Jones Cup team, which played an exhibition game against Holdsclaw and Nikki McCray of the Mystics and the rest of the U.S. Olympic team.

"The Jones Cup was an unbelievable opportunity for me," said Stiles, also a member of the 1998 U.S. Women's Select team and a gold medalist on the 1997 junior world championship team. "It gave me a lot of confidence, and I never felt intimidated in college. I would love to play with Holdsclaw and McCray. I think they are some of the best on the Olympic team."

This season, Stiles has taken her game to a new level as the shooting guard for the Bears (20-5, 14-2 Missouri Valley Conference). She has scored in double figures in each of the team's games, shooting 58 percent from the field, including 52 percent on three-point attempts. She also has made 89 percent of her free throws and averages 3.6 rebounds per game.

But at 5 feet 8, Stiles might have to move back to point guard to play in the more physical WNBA.

"She had to play more at the one last year because we had fewer quality players at that position than this year," Burnett said. "She is so incredibly consistent. I think the most amazing part of it is that she's doing it with people playing box-and-one, triangle-and-twos, and [double-teaming] her."

Stiles's ability to dominate on the court despite being the primary focus of opponents' defenses is impressive, but the little things Stiles does make her such an arresting figure -- and a perfect fit for the fan-friendly WNBA.

"She really is the kind of role model that an athlete should be," Burnett said. "She'll stay an hour after the game just to make sure that whoever wants an autograph or picture taken gets it. Jackie is a tremendous ambassador for women's basketball and athletics in general."

Stiles's love of the game also spills over into her undying appreciation for the fans who have supported her at SMS and in Claflin, which is 237 miles southwest of Kansas City, Kan., has a population of 630 and no stoplight.

"It's rare to find a person in a small town be the best in anything, and Jackie is close to being the best college basketball player in the country," said Gregg Webb, girls basketball coach at Claflin High, where Stiles holds the state record with 3,603 points. That ranks her 10th nationally. "We know Jack; she's always been unbelievable. For us to say she broke the NCAA record, to us, that's just another thing that she's done. And she's not done yet."