THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 1, 1997 TAG: 9702010609
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Tom Robinson
LENGTH: 67 lines
Now that Nancy Lieberman-Cline has finally made the NBA, the women's version, at least, can another Old Dominion legend, Anne Donovan, be far behind?
Donovan, East Carolina's women's basketball coach, says she has been approached about coaching in the WNBA, which will start play in June. And while Donovan was noncommittal in an interview about what's been discussed - and while East Carolina athletic director Mike Hamrick says he didn't know that Donovan had been contacted - Donovan admits that she would ``have to be crazy not to look at something like that.''
``It's such an exciting time for women's basketball, especially playing under the NBA, she said. ``It doesn't get any finer than that.''
Donovan's right about the exciting part. Just like that, the nation has gone from no professional women's leagues to two: the American Basketball League and the WNBA.
In truth, the road to paydirt for pioneers like Donovan, Lieberman-Cline and Carol Blazejowski, the vice president/general manager of the WNBA's New York franchise, probably seemed as though it would never end. And suddenly, this kind of heaven appears: an eight-team league, each in an NBA market and operated by that city's NBA franchise, with a TV deal already done with NBC, ESPN and Lifetime.
Why wouldn't Lieberman-Cline, aged though she is at 38, want to lace up her shoes? Progress in the women's game is rampant, in attention and respectability. It is drawing more and more positive feedback for the skills and enthusiasm of its athletes and the purity of its competition.
Yet for the sake of that momentum, you have to wonder if two pro leagues, starting up within a year of each other, are really in the best interest of the women's game.
Lieberman-Cline thought not last May when she entered the Basketball Hall of Fame. The day of her induction, she strongly endorsed the WNBA and said she viewed the ABL, which is without the NBA's resources, as potentially harmful to the cause should it fold.
``Who gets the black eye then? Women's basketball,'' she said. ``We're not that good that we can be in two or three leagues.''
But when Lieberman-Cline signed with the WNBA this week, she changed her stance, adopting a more-the-merrier attitude.
``With two leagues, you have to look at it as 80 more jobs available for women that they haven't had before,'' she said. ``It just spreads the goodwill of women's basketball all year round; the ABL is in the fall and the WNBA is throughout the summer.
``It's a win-win for everybody. I don't see how it can't be. We might be playing in one league someday, but right now, it certainly doesn't hurt.''
Lieberman-Cline made more sense in May. Sure it hurts, because even though their seasons are played at different times, the ABL isn't what it could be, and the WNBA won't be what it could be, either.
So the impact of women's pro ball simply won't be maximized, not until every bona fide pro out there is rounded up to be showcased in a single league.
Put the game on NBC then. Put recognizable names like the WNBA's Lieberman-Cline, Sheryl Swoopes and Lisa Leslie in with the ABL's Dawn Staley, Teresa Edwards and Jennifer Azzi - and maybe even coaches like Hall of Famer Anne Donovan. See what happens.
Definitely, there would be increased chances of their game finding the sort of mass appeal that fills the women's dreams. That isn't likely to happen regardless; modest, niche acceptance over the long term should still be the goal of anybody rooted in reality.
But even that will be harder than it has to be, as long as the women feature the one thing they don't need: competition within their own ranks.