Whitman College Magazine Winter 2022

Class Notes
Blues All-Star. Makana
Stone ’20 was named
Northwest Conference
Player of the Year in
her senior year.
Three-Point Play
Makana Stone ’20 plays pro basketball in England — and the sport’s ambassador off the court
When former Blues forward and biology major Makana Stone ’20
graduated from Whitman, she wasn’t ready to throw in the towel on her
basketball career or her education. She reached out to a sports agency
and with their help soon found the perfect solution: playing ball and
pursuing a master’s degree in exercise physiology at Loughborough
University in England.
“I thought that was the best route for me because, as well as
wanting to continue being an athlete myself, at some point I also
want to coach and I really want to understand athletes and the way
their bodies function,” Stone says.
It was the right call: In 2021, Stone not only earned her graduate
degree, she also signed a contract to play professionally for the
Leicester Riders. Now, as a Women’s British Basketball League
(WBBL) player, she’s more than a team forward.
“My position is threefold: I’m playing ball, I’m also working for
the club in a community involvement role, organizing and running
community basketball events and managing some of the team’s
social media, and I’m also coaching Loughborough’s tier-three BUCs
(British Universities and Colleges League) team,” she says.
Professional basketball is still relatively new to Great Britain,
where it’s easily eclipsed by soccer, cricket and rugby. The British
Basketball League, the country’s highest level of play, was only
formed in 1987—and it wasn’t until 2014 that the WBBL was
launched. “But there’s definitely a growing interest,” says Stone.
“And part of my job with the Riders is to facilitate that interest with
younger members of the community.”
Playing abroad also gives Stone the chance to see more of
Europe—something she’s wanted to do since she caught the travel
bug on her first trip overseas, studying pollination biology in Sweden
as part of Whitman’s Crossroads faculty-led summer program.
The biggest culture shock of moving to England? “I think oddly
enough, the language,” Stone says. “I mean, we all speak English,
but the differences really hit me when I first got here. Especially
when I started working with the kids—a lot of them would come up
to me and ask me how I pronounce certain words and giggle at the
way I said them.”
“My plan is
to play for
as long as I
possibly can
and then get
into a coaching
position.”
— Makana Stone ’20
WINTER 2022 / 41