THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 22, 1995 TAG: 9503220554
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY RON RAPOPORT, LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
When North Carolina won the NCAA women's basketball championship last season, university officials expressed their gratitude to coach Sylvia Hatchell by raising her pay 50 percent, to $90,000 a year.
It did not occur to Hatchell to file a sex-discrimination suit even though she was still making considerably less than Dean Smith.
Hatchell, whose team arrived in Los Angeles on Tuesday for the NCAA West Regional at Pauley Pavilion, stands in stark contrast to the Joan of Arc of women's basketball, Marianne Stanley. By sheer coincidence, $90,000 happens to be the amount of money Stanley turned down to coach the Southern Cal women's basketball team last season.
My reflex response to Stanley's insistence that she be compensated equally with George Raveling was to say, ``Right on.'' After about 30 seconds of consideration, however, it was hard to resist the conclusion that Stanley was a foolish woman who was acting on some very bad advice.
Stanley's suit against Southern Cal recently was dismissed from U.S. District Court, and if the old dictum that the Supreme Court follows the election returns is true, she can hardly expect any relief there. The likelihood that other colleges will want her is similarly slim, so Stanley is left with little besides her martyr's clothes and the want ads.
What must really irk Stanley is that she wrote her ticket out of basketball just as it was finally beginning to achieve the popularity and the public profile women coaches have been working for so long and so hard.
Thanks in part to Charlotte Smith's tournament-winning shot heard round the world a year ago - a 3-pointer launched with 0.7 seconds left - women's basketball has taken off.
Attendance is up all over the country, ESPN is televising several dozen tournament games this year, the Final Four in Minneapolis has been sold out for months and a group of women investors is investigating the idea of a professional league.
The women who are a part of this phenomenon, players and coaches alike, are simply delighted at the chance they have been given to preach the gospel to an ever-growing congregation.
``I've had people watch me on TV all over the country,'' North Carolina center Carrie McKee says. ``That's how you build interest. That's how you build role models.
``When I was in high school, I didn't have any role models. I had no clue who the players were. But now you look at our mail, young girls are writing from all over the country.''
And Hatchell thinks things can only continue to get better.
``I can remember in the mid-'60s when men's basketball was like the women are now,'' she says. ``The arenas weren't full. It wasn't till TV came along that the game really took off. TV educates people. That's what happened with men's basketball. It showed people how talented the players are, and then the fans developed loyalties.''
What women's basketball needs is to show the public how exciting it can be to watch at the same time it is showing young girls around the country how much fun it can be to play. What it does not need is to take money needed for these important functions and siphon it off to make a few coaches rich.
If there is money to be made in women's basketball - and after expenses and the cost of scholarships there still isn't that much - then by all means use it to develop the game. Use it to take the game to the schoolyards. Use it to make the attitudes of the men and women playing the game equal, not the salaries of the men and women coaching it.
``When I was coming up, if you liked sports, you were stereotyped,'' Hatchell says. ``You were a tomboy.
``I can remember many times I was the only girl on the playground playing basketball. In baseball, I could beat every one of them. I could knock the ball over the fence, but I couldn't play Little League.''
That has changed now, and thanks to coaches like Sylvia Hatchell, it will continue to change.
What a pity that all Marianne Stanley can do is sit on the sidelines. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
FILE
Former Old Dominion coach Marianne Stanley, shown in this 1986
photo, sued Southern Cal, seeking pay equal to that of the men's
basketball coach. It turned out to be her ticket out of the game.
by CNB