Keyboard Quarterbacks

By Karen Bailis

When you’re the much-heralded new kid on the block, the rookie dubbed the savior of the game, you know there’s a target on your back. You know all eyes are on you. You know you’re carrying the WNBA world on your shoulders.

When you’re Candace Parker, the 6-5 phenom with two straight championships out of Tennessee and the No. 1 draft pick for the Los Angeles Sparks, you HAVE to be better than everyone else not just in the way you carry the ball but in the way you carry yourself.

And although Parker, who is fourth in the WNBA in scoring and leads her star-studded team in nearly every category, has exceeded expectations with her play just 24 games into her first pro season, she flunked her first true test as a basketball-playing human being.

She took the bait. After tangling with the Detroit Shock’s Plenette Pierson, a known hothead, and the two ended up on the floor, Pierson got up first and stood threateningly over Parker. Who knows what Pierson, a title-winning trash-talker, might have been saying. Parker, who had mixed it up a bit with the Shock’s Cheryl Ford in a previous play, pulled Pierson back to the floor.

The benches cleared. Detroit assistant coach Rick Mahorn shoved LA’s Lisa Leslie to the floor. Her teammate Delisha Milton-Jones swiped at the refridgerator-sized Mahorn, as did 5-2 Shannon Bobbitt. In trying to restrain a flailing, still jawing Pierson, Ford injured her knee. One report says Ford, who’s been hobbled by a left-knee injury all season, tore the ACL in her right knee. Parker, Pierson, Mahorn and Milton-Jones were ejected. There were 4.6 seconds left in the game, which the Sparks won, 84-81.

Suspensions will follow as early as Thursday. And Parker and Pierson should face the brunt of league President Donna Orender’s wrath. They both were the instigators in what turned into an ugly event.

And while Pierson appears to be the thug in this confrontation, Parker is more culpable. She took a bad situation and made it worse. She should have known better.

As the new face of the WNBA, she should have been aware of the bigger picture. She should know that on her shoulders lies the responsibility of upholding the professionalism of women’s sports, to learn from the mistakes of the men and build -- and maintain -- a better league.

In the case of Parker, to paraphrase from the Bible, to whom much is given, much is required.

This would have been so much cooler if he had caught the ball, high-fived the fan, ate some of his popcorn, threw a punch at someone, hit his head on a railing and THEN threw to first base for the double play. But whatever, I guess it's still pretty cool.

By Karen Bailis

You’ve come a long way, baby.

But not without your blush, eyeliner and lipstick.

No matter if you can dribble and drive with the best of them. Or have two consecutive NCAA championships to your name. Or you’ve out-dunked the boys -- back when you were in high school.

Your cuts to the basket might be divine, but as a woman athlete you must cut a goddess-like image to get noticed.

And that’s what the WNBA is telling its rookies: You want to get noticed, you gotta wear makeup.

Yep, baby, there’s still a long way to go.

As part of the WNBA’s two-day rookie orientation at a Chicago hotel, the basketball phenoms for the first time were offered hourlong sessions on makeup application and fashion, the Chicago Tribune reports. The orientation also addressed finances and fitness and nutrition.

Sadly, this is what it’s come to. The WNBA, which wouldn’t know a creative marketing move if it were slam-dunked in its face, is relying on sex appeal to generate interest in the best women basketball players in the world. The tactic isn’t new. The league has been using its “Have You Seen Her” campaign, which features top players on the court and off, looking sexy and glam. Before that, it was “This Is Who I Am.”

And it sickens every fiber of my feminist being to say I’d be all for it if I thought it would work. I’d take nearly anything to turn around slumping attendance figures. If seeing a dolled-up Candace Parker will put butts in the seats at every arena she plays in, break out the blush!

But c’mon, the reason ticket sales for the LA Sparks are up is because she’s the most dazzling player to come out of college in a long time, and she’s about to join arguably the best veteran, Lisa Leslie.

The pairing should be a marketing -- and a fan’s -- dream.

But instead, Parker, the nation’s No. 1 pick and two-time NCAA champ, is talking makeup.

“I think it’s very important. I’m the type who likes to put on basketball shorts and a white T, but I love to dress up and wear makeup,” she said in the Chicago Tribune. “But as time goes on, I think (looks) will be less and less important.”

There’s nothing wrong with wearing a little makeup and dressing up off the court. But any player worth her high-tops wants to be known less for her looks than her no-looks.

Let’s call the emphasis on players’ appearance what it is: sexism and homophobia.

The WNBA’s push for pretty is applying makeup -- concealer, if you will -- to gloss over the unsightly blemish of the perception of the league as a bunch of lesbians. As if handing out lists to the media of the moms in the league and emphasizing the players who have husbands or boyfriends weren’t obvious enough tactics.

Just the mere staying power of the league is a testament to these women as athletes and individuals. Don’t take away their legitimacy by falling prey to stereotypes.

“Once you begin to worry about how the person looks as opposed to how she plays, you've crossed the line into dangerous play,” said Susan Ziegler, a Cleveland State professor of sports psychology. “We’re not really focused on marketing them as athletes but as feminine objects.”

Yeah, players wear makeup on the court, too. Four-time WNBA champ Tina Thompson, known for her bright red lipstick, says she wears the stuff as a sort of armor going into battle. And Leslie’s new autobiography, “Don’t Let the Lipstick Fool You” describes the pride she takes in her self-described feminine appearance. But she also makes clear that she lets her game speak for itself. And it has spoken: She has three Olympic gold medals and two WNBA championships and is a three-time league MVP.

Let the women’s games do the talking.

By Karen Bailis

Say it ain’t so!

Dawn Staley, the Philly hoops phenom who came home to coach just blocks from where she grew up, is leaving Temple University for the University of South Carolina and a total annual salary package of $650,000.

Staley, who’d been reluctant to coach at all when she was approached for the Temple job in 2000 while she was still playing in the WNBA, said her goal had been to make Temple a national women's basketball powerhouse. In her mind, that meant a national championship, which she’d fallen just short of in her stellar college career at the University of Virginia and in the WNBA.

In her eight years at the gritty North Philadelphia campus, she immediately turned around a decade-long losing record and took her team to the NCAA tournament six times, won the Atlantic 10 Championship four times and compiled a 172-80 record, the best in team history. The Owls cracked the AP Top 25, and two of Staley’s former players are in the WNBA.

Still, by her own measure, Staley leaves unfinished business. Her Owls had yet to advance beyond the first round of the Tournament. Although Staley regularly scheduled powerhouse non-conference opponents -- Tennessee, Maryland, Rutgers, Duke -- who would draw more fans to the Liacouras Center, attendance at the women’s games still came nowhere near the men’s, which was a struggling squad during Staley’s tenure.

It’s hard to believe the three-time Olympic gold medalist would leave Philadelphia for another coaching job, given her protestations that she was attracted to the Temple job only because it gave her the chance to give more back to her hometown. She’d started the Dawn Staley Foundation to help inner-city youth years before, but she’d not considered coaching. Didn’t think she’d be good at it.

Nearly everyone else knew better. The best in the business have called her, well, simply the best. C. Vivian Stringer: “Dawn is just special.” Nancy Lieberman: She’s a “gem.”

So Temple awarded their gem a six-year contract extension last year, worth about $500,000 annually, when other teams came calling. After all, this is a school whose founder, Russell Conwell, built the institution based on the mission of cultivating the “acres of diamonds” in one’s own backyard. Staley had been one of those diamonds in the rough, just 10 blocks away at the Raymond Rosen houses.

But diamonds are much-coveted, and South Carolina has an attractive setting. Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to compete in the all-powerful SEC? The conference draws bigger crowds and thus is an easier sell for top recruits. And then there’s the $650,000 a year, plus the promise to help pay back Staley’s $500,000 buyout.

Staley’s guaranteed income is more than Gamecocks baseball coach Ray Tanner ($345,000) and the man who hired her, USC athletics director Eric Hyman ($475,000), The State reported.

So while I’m bereft that Staley, one of my idols, is leaving my alma mater, I’m consoled that she left it much better than when she came. Still, how great would it have been for her to have done what even the legendary John Chaney could not?: Bring a national basketball championship to North Broad Street.

By Karen Bailis

“She’s looking at me! Make her stop looking at me!”

“He started it!”

The two top coaches in women’s college basketball devolved this season into the nonsensical argument my brother and I inflicted on our parents back when I was 8 and he was 5.

Now we know why, but it still doesn’t make any sense.

Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma finally shared his side of the story behind the breakup — painful for basketball fans everywhere — with Tennessee’s Pat Summitt. But she’s still not talking.

And he says she’s a chicken for not telling her side. Nyah-nyah, nyah-nyah-nyah.

Auriemma, as promised when all this open acrimony started, related the story as he sees it, now that the season of discontent has finished with Tennessee crowned as champion for the eighth time.

Summitt ended the 13-year-old classic series between her Lady Vols and Auriemma’s UConn Huskies because Summitt accused Connecticut of a recruiting violation.

“Pat knows and I don’t have anything to say about it anymore,” Auriemma said during his end-of-season news conference (see video). “But I am not the one who made the decision not play. She should just tell everyone [why] instead of continuing to say, ‘Geno knows.’

“I do know why [they are not playing]. She accused us of cheating in recruiting, but she doesn’t have the courage to say it in public. So, yes, I guess I do know because I’ve already said why. Then again, there’s a lot I know about a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean I go around canceling series.

“Remember, this is the same person who said if the Duke fans didn’t treat her players well she’d cancel that series. So, if people don’t stop misbehaving, she’ll only be able to play regular-season conference games, unless that starts to bug them, too.

“It’s not going to change. It’s not going to happen. ... Do I see the cold war ending? Nope. Nope. Not until she tears down that wall.”

UConn officials said in March they self-reported a secondary violation of NCAA rules in connection with a 2005 ESPN studio tour that the women’s basketball office arranged for top recruit Maya Moore. Tennessee had been after hot prospect Moore, who this season became the first freshman to win Big East Player of the Year honors.

ESPN reported last month that Tennessee had complained to Southeastern Conference officials about the tour, but Tennessee and SEC representatives would not comment.

Summitt has referred to the loss of Moore to UConn as the most disappointing of her career.

Could it be that in her drive to be the best, to keep winning championships and stay ahead of Auriemma’s five titles, Pat is getting pricklier under pressure?

Does the fact that Auriemma is breathing down her neck with his quips and pokes and — more importantly — getting the recruits she most covets move her to such high dudgeon that her judgment has been slam-dunked?

Until about 9 months ago, Summitt represented all that was good in women’s basketball. She’s done a ton of heavy lifting to put the game on the map and erect signs so that everyone would find it. But since her decision to end the Tennessee-UConn game and her stubborn and misguided refusal to speak candidly about it, she’s demonstrated how lost she is.

She’s let Auriemma get to her and throw her off course with what amounts to sour grapes at a time when her willingness to be an emissary of the game is still vital. This season, she’ll likely become the first Division I coach to hit 1,000 wins.

She doesn’t need to restore the UConn-Tennessee rivalry in order to keep growing the game. As Geno said, It’s not gonna happen. But she does need to recognize that her role in the ‘cold war’ is destroying years of basketball diplomacy.

Summitt’s missteps have left Auriemma in all his pomposity on the high road, while she comes off as “passive-aggressive” and “always wanting someone else to blame for what’s going on.” Yes, I’m agreeing with Auriemma here.

Although he says “you can’t take me too seriously, come on. That’s another reason we’re not playing, I’m too much of a smart-ass.”

C’mon, Pat, don’t let the smart-ass win.

By Karen Bailis

TAMPA, Fla. -- By most accounts, Stanford was the favorite coming into Tuesday night's NCAA Tournament Final against defending champion Tennessee. The Cardinal had the momentum, the NCAA's longest active win streak and Candice Wiggins.

But they ran into the brick wall of Tennessee tradition and a ferocious defense that almost immediately walloped the wind out of Stanford. Tennessee pressed and pressed and pressed some more, immediately flustering Stanford. It broke up their triangle offense and forced turnovers. Stanford's 25 turnovers was the most for the Cardinal in two-and-a-half seasons.

Surprisingly, the phenomenal Candace Parker did not undo Stanford for the Vols' 64-48 win. Sure, she eventually racked up a game-high 17 points, 9 rebounds, 4 steals and her second Most Outstanding Player award, but she got off to a slow, un-Candace-like start in the first half.

It was the two Lady Vol seniors from New York City, jackrabbit point guard Shannon Bobbitt and center Nicky Anosike, who jumped on Stanford and kept on pounding, before Parker joined them in the second half when the damage already had been done. Anosike and Bobbitt were named to the All-Tournament Team along with Parker.

Anosike forced 6 steals, scored 12 points and reined in 8 rebounds. She averages 8.8 points and 1.7 steals a game. Anosike's performance was notable for her taking -- and making -- jumpers from the free-throw line but more so for her determined defense, at the top of the press, which pushed Stanford's two formidible posts away from their comfort zone.

"I wasn't going home without a championship," Anosike, of Staten Island, said after the game. "If we lost, I was going to live here, because I wasn't going back home. No one was going to deny me a national championship. I did whatever I needed to do to make sure we won."

Parker gave props to the 6-4 center who whispered some motivational words in the star's ear -- which they wouldn't share -- right before Parker went on her offensive tear in the second half.

"She came out ready to play, and she was the reason we won the national championship, because we looked in her eyes and we knew we weren't going to lose after that," said Parker, the Naismith and Associated Press Player of the Year.

Coming up big in the biggest game of the year is nothing new for Anosike. She hauled in 16 rebounds in last year's national championship.

Tennessee coach Pat Summitt, after her 983rd career win, called Anosike the team's inspirational leader.

"I think this game inspired her," Summitt said. "She's one of the most fierce competitors I've ever coached.

"She's going to be very successful in life, because that's who she is."

Who Bobbitt is, is the scrappy, undersized point guard who likes the shake-n-bake as much as the big three from the corner. Her ankle-breaking antics straight from Rucker Park sometimes get her the Pat-ented death stare from Summitt, but the coach said Tuesday night there's no way she'd have won these past two national titles without Bobbitt and the other JuCo transfer, Alberta Auguste. Bobbitt made three threes and hounded Stanford guards JJ Hones and fellow NYer Rosalyn Gold-Onwude into bad passes and a rushed offense. Bobbitt, the smallest player in the Final Four, at 5-2, has a game that's bigger.

"She's so tough-minded," Summitt said. "She thinks she's about 6-5 the way she plays."

And now Bobbitt, Anosike and the Vols have a towering achievement: a second straight national championship.