Sister sister: Kathryn, Maddy Westbeld to meet as WNBA rookies for Phoenix Mercury, Chicago Sky

By Jeff Metcalfe

The longer Kathryn Westbeld was out of the WNBA, the less likely it seemed that a day like Tuesday would ever come.

When Westbeld and her younger sister Maddy would be in the WNBA together, playing before their parents and three siblings in the same game.

Yet Kathryn’s persistence playing overseas paid off this season when at 29 she earned a roster spot with the Phoenix Mercury. In the same season that Maddy made the Chicago Sky as a second-round draft pick out of Notre Dame, where both starred in college.

“There’s just something about that divine timing,” Kathryn says.

After playing on Notre Dame’s 2018 NCAA championship team, Westbeld couldn’t have imagined the seven-year, seven-country odyssey ahead for her to make that dream timing come true. Not to mention a seven-month stint working as an account executive during COVID.

“I didn’t want to get stuck overseas and be in an uncomfortable situation so I was living at home and my dad was like you’ve got to do something,” she says. “It was 9-to-5 every day. I’m grateful for the experience, but I know I do not want to be sitting in an office for my career. I didn’t give up on it (basketball), and I’ve been progressing ever since.”

First after the pandemic in Puerto Rico, where she started after college, then France, Italy, Israel and Hungary. There also were pre-COVID stops in Spain and Australia. She caught the Mercury’s attention by averaging 18.7 points and 8.4 rebounds in her second season with Szekszard and earning All-Hungarian first team (Eurobasket.com).

But making it through a short training camp onto a WNBA roster for the first time is high pressure even for a 29-year-old.

“Her practices were just OK to start,” Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts said after the regular season opener. “But every game we’ve played (including two preseason), she’s played well. She’s the ultimate professional.”

“There were some practices where I didn’t have a good practice,” Westbeld admits. “But the games is what we play for. This is all the hard work you’ve put in, good and bad days, that’s the moment for you to show what you have.

“During training camp, there’s a lot of people trying to get reps and everything. You have your one shot to make that rep perfect. It felt like there was a lot more pressure during training camp.”

Kathryn self-motivated overseas

Except when war broke out in Israel in October 2023, Susan Westbeld rarely worried much about globe-trotting Kathryn.

Maybe she did actually – a parent always worries – but even amidst the Israeli-Hamas conflict, Susan says Kathryn was “as calm as she could be” before figuring a way to safely move to Hungary.

What Kathryn didn’t require was pep talks from her mother and father Jim to stay the course overseas. “She doesn’t require that,” Susan says. “Kathryn has her own fire and motivates herself. I just call her and we talk about food, we cook together, have coffee together (on Facetime). Never did we have to give her any type of drive. She had it.”

Family stories abound about how Kathryn, third of five siblings, evolved into a championship level basketball player – winning at every level since eighth grade – and how it is reflected in her grounded stoicism.

Growing up near Dayton in Kettering, Ohio, Westbeld would repeatedly run up and down a hill, begging her grandfather to continue timing her for improvement.

She played tackle football and basketball with the boys, sending them home crying recalls her older brother Adam. Amanda is the oldest child with Maddy and Benjamin younger than Kathryn, who to their mom is the mediator of the quintet.

“She learned to deal with adversity and figure things out,” Susan says. “She definitely learned patience No. 1. You are not going to get what you want when you want it. She was persistent. Kathryn gets what she wants. She will not back down until she gets it. She earned everything she’s ever gotten.”

Westbeld appreciates the blue-collar work ethic modeled by her parents, married since 1992 after four years of dating. “They both work extremely hard and have set the example for me and my siblings. They never have to say anything. I’ve just watched them as I’ve grown up.”

Kathryn ahead of Maddy for now

Because of Natasha Mack’s back injury, Westbeld is starting for the Mercury through four games (3-1) and in a much different role than her sister, whose Notre Dame career ended March 29 with a loss in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16.

Kathryn is averaging 6 points and 4 rebounds while shooting 38.9 percent (7-of-18) from 3-point including a critical trey with 1:30 left Sunday to help secure a win over Washington.

“I missed a few before that,” said Westbeld, 2-of-8 from three against the Mystics. “You’ve got to keep telling yourself just shoot the ball. You can’t get in your head about missing those shots, it’s all about the next shot. My teammates have confidence in me to keep shooting the ball, and AT (Alyssa Thomas) found me on the wing again and I just let it fly.”

Westbeld joins Diana Taurasi as the only Mercury rookies with one or more 3-pointers in their first four games, a quirky stat but one that Kathryn could scarcely have imagined when training camp opened April 27.

The 6-3 Westbeld is “not an elite rim protector,” Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts says, “but understands space and does a great job in verticality (without fouling). She, 6-2 Thomas and 6-4 Satou Sabally are to Tibbetts the “last line of protection” on a team working to establish a defensive identity.

Maddy Westbeld, also listed at 6-3 but taller than Kathryn, has averaged less than four minutes in two games for Chicago (0-3). She didn’t play Sunday at Los Angeles but perhaps will get a chance Tuesday in part because of the sister-sister story line.

Foot surgery kept Maddy out until January of her final college season, which statistically was her worst. For her, there is much to be learned from her sister about persistence and maintaining self-confidence through adversity.

Like Kathryn learned much from Amanda, an artist, and Adam, who also played basketball.

“To have someone kind of looking up to you, it’s made me live a certain way not only for myself but my two younger siblings. It’s an honor to have a small role of who she is today, it’s such a blessing to watch her now and be on the same level as her. I’ve been waiting for her to catch up to me, and now she’s finally here.”

An arrival, when it comes to the WNBA, for both.