Coach Nancy Lieberman-Cline.
(Metro Times Photo/Rebecca Cook)
Tajama Abraja with teammates.
(Metro Times Photo/Rebecca Cook)
"The purest form of sport is what you're seeing, the
teamwork, the sacrifice."
"The purest form of sport is what you're seeing, the teamwork, the sacrifice."
(Metro Times Photo/Rebecca Cook)
She got game
Women's pro basketball is competitive, inspiring -- and fun.
by Sandra A.
Svoboda
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6/3/98
The "Shock" logo on Jessica
Frankowski's T-shirt was faded by the time the 10-year-old
stood in line for autographs at the Detroit WNBA team's
public introduction in May. That's because she's worn it
"all the time" since buying it when Shock merchandise was
first available.
The shirt reminds her that her parents now will drive her down to Auburn Hills from their Higgins Lake home not just to use their half-season tickets for the Pistons but for the June-August season of the new women's team. The shirt also reminds her that if she practices, she'll "get really good" at a sport she loves, she said.
Jessica describes the game she most often plays with boys teams as "fun," but her mother, Sue, is able to articulate part of what this new team means to girls, women and maybe even boys and men.
"So much of team sports you can relate into everyday life," she said. "Women play a whole different type of ball than men do. I think
it's important for Jessica to see that it's not all high-fiving."
That Frankow-ski can watch and even hope to play for a WNBA team represents a brand-new dream that women nearly 30 years her senior are fulfilling for the first time: a professional basketball career in a high-powered, well-funded U.S. league.
Marketed on the concepts of team-oriented basketball, opportunities for women and a reflection of a society that offers both genders a chance to excel, the WNBA is something else.
Women have played in college for decades, on Olympic teams since 1976, in the lesser-known American Basketball League and overseas in many European and Japanese leagues, but the WNBA offers them a league at home and games during the summer months that don't require them to forgo other careers.
Coming off the momentum of the 1996 Olympic gold medal-winning, NBA-sponsored women's team, the WNBA's eight original teams formed in cities with successful men's franchises. They competed last year in the league's inaugural season, and Houston won the championship in front of 16,285 fans and a national television audience.
Detroit was invited to organize one of the first teams but declined, Pistons President Tom Wilson admitted recently while watching an early Shock practice on the Palace floor.
"I was the biggest nonbeliever in the world," he said, not taking his eyes off the squad practice in-bounding drills, clapping when shots swooshed through the hoops and calling out to some players by name although he admitted they probably didn't know, or care, who he was. "After the championship game, I called the commissioner and said, 'We're ready to come in.' He said, 'You and 10 others.'"
Opening night
Citing Detroit's media market, General Motors Corp.'s continuing sponsorship of the league, the well-run Pistons organization and the success of Palace-based ventures including the Pistons, the IHL's Vipers and other entertainment sites, the WNBA in October recommended expansion to Detroit and Washington, Wilson said.
From there, the Shock formed, fulfilling the dreams of coaches, staff and players, and helping Jessica Frankowski make new ones. Opening night, June 13, is sold out, and more people will be in the stands than were at the championship game last year.
"I'm living a dream. I'm not taking it for granted," said Lynette Woodard, who at 38 is the oldest WNBA player this season. A guard, she played for Cleveland last year, taking a leave from her career as a stockbroker. Woodard already has achieved in her sport what few women have in any profession: first female member of the Harlem
Globetrotters, all-time leading scorer in women's college basketball when she graduated from Kansas, Olympic gold medalist, member of a world championship team, four seasons of play in Italy and three in Japan.
But she comes back this season, like the rest of her teammates and coaches, with a genuine appreciation for the opportunity to play and teach women's basketball, as well as a recognition of the awesome expectations and uncertainties of the league. Can women's teams play high-caliber basketball, attract fans and sponsors, and retain the unspoiled nature of players who have all finished college, play for a fraction of an NBA player's salary and sometimes wear flowered hair ties to practice?
"The purest form of sport is what you're seeing, the teamwork, the sacrifice, the working for a common goal," said Rhonda Blades, a point guard who played for the New York Liberty last year. She was left unprotected and became the Shock's first-round pick in the league's expansion draft.
"It's so exciting. I think the women bring such a fresh, positive outlook to sports. I guess my wish for the future is that it doesn't turn into a monster. I want the success to come, but I want people to just remember where they came from," she said.
Blades is typical of people on this team. She finished a nursing degree in three years at Vanderbilt and continued to play basketball during her first year of graduate school. She bypassed a year of professional play to finish her master's degree in nursing. And she doesn't see anything unusual about pursuing a
cutting-edge opportunity in professional women's sports and a very traditional female profession, the same career path Jessica Frankow-ski would like to follow.
"I love serving people. I think if you watch me play you'll find that out too. I may have a wide-open shot, and they get on me every time to shoot it, but if I wanted to play as an individual, I would've played tennis. I like to get my teammates involved," she said.
She's also as comfortable talking about becoming the "bad girls" of the league, doing "whatever we need to do to make this team win" and "hating to lose" as she is discussing her marriage, her work with kids, her career as a nurse and being a "lady" off the court.
Warrior mentality
That's the kind of player coach Nancy Lieberman-Cline wants and says she needs to fulfill her goal of a league championship.
"We picked players we thought would be great women on and off the court," she said. "We don't want a team of superstars. I'd rather take players with less talent, with better attitude and warrior mentality. Give me those players that want to play team ball and make everybody else better, and I'll show you a winning basketball team."
Lieberman-Cline became the Shock coach and general manager in January after playing for Phoenix last year as the oldest player in the league at 38. Lieberman-Cline's basketball résumé is unique among U.S. women as she's played at the highest levels since high school when she was the top college prospect. At age 18 she earned a silver medal during the Olympic debut of women's basketball and went on to lead her college team, Old Dominion, to two national championships.
She also played for the champion Dallas Diamonds in the Women's American Basketball Association, became the first woman to play in a men's professional league in the United States, the U.S. Basketball League, and continues to work in broadcasting for ESPN and at her basketball camps and clinics.
"That's one thing I like about Nancy, she's a winner. Everything she's done, she's won," Blades said.
Lieberman-Cline minces no words in discussing her goals for the Shock. "I think people who are pessimistic say, 'We just hope you guys do well.' I think we can win a championship, that's our goal. If winning a championship isn't our goal, then Tom Wilson shouldn't have hired me," she said.
But she also recognizes the responsibility of leading a women's team in a new league with a new message for a new audience.
"Our players are well aware of the impact that they can have on people," she said. "Just to see the kids, the smiles on their faces, ... the letters that people from Phoenix write me. It makes me feel so good that we had an impact."
The Shock's marketing experts also realize that if the league is to survive and profit, the teams must offer quality entertainment and quality basketball that inspire fans to follow teams, attend games, and buy the T-shirts and other gear.
"The cause thing is only going to work for a while. You're going to come out and support them a time or two," said Wilson. "The key (last year) was to get people out one time and see it. They were surprised by how much they enjoyed the event or the quality or caliber of play."
Every day
To get to that level, the Shock's training camp opened May 12 with league veterans, Olympians from overseas, college standouts and a handful of women who were invited after a local tryout in May. Lieberman-Cline and her staff will cut the squad of 16 to 11 on June 10. Those selected will earn between $15,000 and $60,000 for the season.
"You just really have to go out there every day and work as hard as you can, so when that day happens you can say you gave it your all," said Betsy Harris, a guard who was invited to camp after the local tryout. She played for Alabama, reaching the Final Four her senior year. Since then she's played in five different professional leagues in Europe and plans a coaching career in the future.
Being selected to the Shock would give Harris an opportunity to play in her home country in front of family and friends, thanks to the league's national television contracts with NBC Sports and the Lifetime channel. But she keeps the game in a perspective not as readily seen in the men's leagues.
"Education is more important than basketball. I never really realized that until I saw my diploma," she said. "I would like to see all athletes finish school whether they leave early (for pro leagues) or not, because that's what you want the kids to do."
The entire Shock roster will boast at least college degrees, Lieberman-Cline said. Blades already has a master's degree in nursing. Local tryout invitees Sheneika Walker and Molly Tideback plan to enroll in medical school and an art education certification program, respectively, if their basketball dreams don't come true this summer.
"I can defer a year for medical school. It depends on how it all works out," said Walker, a 1998 graduate of the University of North Carolina.
Tideback, who played in Belgium for four years after graduating from the University of Iowa and making an NCAA Final Four appearance there, plans to teach high school after earning the certificate and coach a women's team whose players will directly benefit from the Shock training.
"I think some of the offenses that we use here you can take to the high school level," she said. "Every day I listen and I take that stuff too."
Tideback got a leave of absence from her job as a paint technician in a Missouri factory to come to Detroit's camp -- a job that awaits her return if she's not named to the final team.
"It's a sad thing that not all of us can be here and be on the team," she said. "I'll cry either way. -- But if (I'm) not (selected), I have my life outside of basketball."
The emotional aspect of sports is a concept the league has openly embraced, Wilson said. "I think that it's a human league," he said. Can this league lead to social change? Wilson thinks maybe.
"There's a lot of good cultural things that can come out of this. You start to see women in a different way. -- Maybe it's subtle or maybe it just opens the door. It's not going to affect everybody, but certain people are going to have their eyes opened. I think sports play a very, very important part in how we view other races, other people, other genders."
The Shock isn't concerned about the perception that the game might not be exciting, that the players might not be skilled and that fans won't embrace it.
"If there's anyone who is out there who thinks that way, they probably haven't seen a women's game. It's not a girls' game. it's a women's game," Woodard said.
She thinks of the Jessica Frankowskis of the world, girls who are starting to play younger. Girls who are excited about seeing the game on television. Girls who will come to games to see the Shock and other WNBA teams.
"They're really dreaming. This is
a great thing," Woodard said.
Sandra A. Svoboda is a
Detroit-based freelance writer. E-mail her at metrotimes@aminc.com.