After completing a third season with the Houston Comets, Michelle Snow looks forward to taking a bigger leadership role in 2005. Named the WNBA’s Most Improved Player in 2003, the first-round draft choice is primed to put an even bigger chill on Comets opponents this summer.

Michelle, 24, has quickly established herself as one of the league’s top defensive centers. In one game during the 2003 season, the former University of Tennessee star hauled in a franchise record 16 rebounds and still ranks among the WNBA’s leaders in rebounds and blocked shots.

Michelle finished her 2004 campaign ranked third in the WNBA in defensive rebounds. This season she looks forward to the challenge of becoming one of the Comets’ “go-to” players and becoming the team’s third shooter.

Setting records is nothing new to the 6-foot 5-inch Pensacola native. Michelle set the Comets’ rookie record for the highest field-goal percentage in a season. She gained national attention her senior year of college when she became the only female college player to dunk three times in a career. The feat stirred debate among sports journalists as to whether or not women should dunk.

After being drafted by the Comets in 2002, Michelle returned to the University of Tennessee in the off-season and received her bachelor’s degree in psychology in 2002.

Michelle will spend the 2004 off-season playing internationally for Basket Parma in Italy. In 2003, she played in Russia where she averaged 15 points and 11.4 rebounds. She has also played with the KB Savers of the Women’s Korea Basketball League and the Houston Stealth of the National Women’s Basketball League.

Michelle has received various athletic honors to include: member of the 2002 WBCA College All-Star Team; playing for the 2000 R. William Jones Cup gold medal team; named 1998 Nike/WBCA High School All-American; member of USA Basketball’s 19-and-under team that claimed the 1998 World Championship.

The daughter of Michael and Rosa Snow, Michelle is the oldest of five children, including two brothers, Michael and Desmond, and two sisters, Rosalyn and April. Rosa Snow lived with lupus, a chronic inflammatory disease, for more than 13 years. She died from complications associated with the disease at the start of Michelle’s third WNBA season. To honor her mother’s legacy, Michelle hopes to bring awareness to the disease by raising money for treatment and to find a cure.

In addition to basketball, Michelle enjoys reading, writing poetry and traveling.