As you’ve seen with our posts on Cricket and NASCAR, we’re going to continue to broaden our horizons and occasionally let readers and bloggers express their views on subjects we aren’t able to write about at length. Today, an assistant basketball coach in California, Melissa Treibwasser, writes about Elena Delle Donne, the Next Big Thing in women’s basketball. Treibwasser’s words are after the jump.

The winner of the inaugural HoopGurlz/ESPN National Player of the Year was announced earlier this month, and while you may not have heard of her, Elena Delle Donne should be noticed. Called the female LeBron James, and compared favorably to Dirk Nowitzki, she’s a 6-foot-5 guard with serious skills. (You can see them here, if you have the desire to watch nine minutes of three pointers and blocked shots). While she doesn’t possess the raw athleticism of Candace Parker, she has range that extends beyond the three-point line, the slick handle of a point guard, a superb post-up game, and has shot 87% from the free throw line over the course of her career. She has also led her Ursuline Academy Raiders (Delaware) to four state titles in five years, averaging 31 points and 11 boards her senior season, and picking up multiple national Player of the Year awards along the way.

But that’s not why you should care about Elena Delle Donne. The Connecticut-bound senior is interesting not because of what she did on the court, but what she didn’t do. Last summer, she quit. She walked away from her club team, her high school team, and the Olympic U-19 team. Despite being the #1 recruit in the country, she had enough, and vowed not to step foot on a court again until September of last year. In an interview with Glenn Nelson of HoopGurlz last July, Delle Donne opened up about her decision.

“I felt like I needed a break, but I thought I’d get over it,” Delle Donne said. “I thought I’d have just enough gas in the tank to make it through the summer. But I don’t.”

So is this just a case of teenage burnout? Or was it something more?

“If they (college recruiters) call, I probably won’t answer or call back. If they text, I might ignore them. I’m totally putting that away. The whole recruiting thing was a huge part in my getting to this point.”

Has it gotten to the point that Division I recruits feel the only way they can live a normal life, even in Delaware, is to walk away from the game? Quite possibly, yes. Delle Donne’s career has been followed closely since she was a precocious pre-teen – albeit a 6-foot-5 one. After attending a basketball camp the summer before her 8th grade year in North Carolina, UNC Coach Sylvia Hatchell called Ernie Delle Donne, Elena’s father, into her office to offer Elena a full-ride. Since then, countless articles have been written about the girl who is supposed to re-write the record books, and it seems as if all the attention has finally taken it’s toll on her.

Elena Delle Donne is one of the most highly recruited female athletes, perhaps ever. Barraged with attention, text messages, and phone calls since the time she first came on the scene as a 12-year-old, it got to the point that she couldn’t even go out in her hometown without being stopped multiple times. Her high school games were often delayed while security worked to squeeze the crowds into the gym – where fans were often relegated to standing-room-only to accommodate the dozens of coaches in attendance. She couldn’t leave her phone for more than a few minutes without racking up dozens of text messages and voice mails. Her hype trumps even that of her future running mate in Storrs, Maya Moore. Moore, you may remember, is as well known for the controversy she ignited between Tennessee’s Pat Summit and UConn’s Geno Auriemma as she is for her outstanding freshman campaign. And what Moore started, Delle Donne may have finished, as it is widely rumored that the battle over her recruitment is what led to the cancellation of the Connecticut/Tennessee season series.

“Somehow I was dragged into that, and I had nothing to do with it,” Delle Donne said in the interview with Nelson. “It was ridiculous stuff like that I needed to get away from. The huge part of trying to make a college decision is all the outside media and influences. It has taken a game and made it into a job. That’s how I’ve been feeling about basketball, that it’s been my job.”

And this type of thing is happening in Women’s Basketball! Can you imagine what it must be like as a blue-chip male recruit? Recruiting is more of a war than ever, fought not in the trenches but on the Summer AAU Circuit and through text messaging and online chatting. Teenage kids are being pressured into life-altering decisions with a barrage of instant messages, emails, phone calls and texts. While the NCAA is working to alleviate the flood, it will continue to be an issue as long as there are websites and magazines devoted to picking apart the games and abilities of these young men and women, and millions of dollars to be had by Division I athletics through media contracts. Elena Delle Donne might be one of the biggest female names in the recruiting saga, but she certainly isn’t the only one to succumb to the pressure.