‘The Jackie Stiles Story’, A Portrait Of WNBA And College Basketball Star Featuring Both Triumph And Tragedy, Acquired By Virgil Films

Dade Hayes
·2 min read

EXCLUSIVE: Virgil Films has acquired worldwide rights to The Jackie Stiles Story, a basketball documentary blending triumph with elements of tragedy.

At 5-foot-8, Stiles grew up in a Kansas town with 600 residents before becoming a force of nature on the court. She became a college All-American and set a scoring record while playing at a school far from the national spotlight, Southwest Missouri State. (Stiles said her father warned her against passing up scholarship offers from blue-chip colleges like Tennessee and the University of Connecticut.) In 2001, Stiles led Missouri State to the Final Four in 2001, with the Lady Bears beating teams like Rutgers, Washington, and Duke along the way.

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Stiles went on to a dazzling pro career in the WNBA, earning the league’s Rookie of the Year honors. In 2016, she was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.

After her WNBA career was cut dramatically short due to injuries, Stiles encountered a more daunting health challenge more recently when doctors diagnosed her with ocular melanoma, a rare form of cancer in the eye.

The Jackie Stiles Story, which is directed by Brent Huff, is slated for release this summer, not long after the 50th anniversary of the passage of Title IX. The sweeping civil rights law that gave a boost to female athletes along with women in many other areas of society.

“We are incredibly lucky to be the ones distributing this film,” Virgil president Joe Amodei said. “Jackie’s story is nothing short of incredible, and a lesson of hope for all girls participating in any scholastic sport.”

Founded in 2003, Virgil has released Oscar-nominated feature documentaries Restrepo and Glenn Campbell … I’ll Be Me as well as more recent titles like We Are Columbine and original production Clarence Clemons, Who Do I Think I Am?

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