Lady Vols' visitor Spani has football mentality

Officially, Taber Spani will be a women's basketball recruit on Tennessee's campus this weekend.

Unofficially, she will be a football fan.

"I would've loved to play football,'' said the 6-foot-1 senior guard from Lee's Summit, Mo., who will attend the UT-Florida game. "I think I'm a linebacker with a quarterback's mentality."

Spani comes by her affection naturally. Her father, Gary, was a linebacker at Kansas State and was the first consensus All-American in school history. He played nine seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs, becoming their all-time leading tackler. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2002.

Spani's grandfather, Frosty Westering, coached Pacific Lutheran to 261 victories and four national championships at either the NAIA or NCAA Division III levels before retiring in 2003. Overall, he had 305 victories in 40 seasons as a college coach. Spani said that her grandfather coached at the 1999 Hula Bowl with UT's Phillip Fulmer.

Spani's gridiron mentality has translated well to the basketball court, where she averaged 29.6 points and 11 rebounds per game last season for Metro Academy. She helped the Mavericks to a second-place finish in the National Christian Homeschool Basketball Championships in March and was named the top girls' player in metropolitan Kansas City.

Spani will be visiting with Webb School's Faith Dupree and Kamiko Williams from Clarksville, who have verbally committed to Tennessee.

Spani visited Tennessee unofficially last June. On the return trip she wants to get acquainted with all of the Lady Vols' freshmen and get better acquainted with the other players and coaches.

Spani, who visited Connecticut last March, said that she will choose between UT and Kansas State, where her older sister, Shalin, is a sophomore guard. Spani said the family's Kansas State connection isn't an overriding factor in her decision.

"No matter what, they're going to support me,'' she said. "Our family is bigger than basketball."

© 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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