DATE: Saturday, August 2, 1997              TAG: 9708020693

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Tom Robinson 

                                            LENGTH:   68 lines

GOOD NEWS: FRETT'S A PRO BAD NEWS: IT'S IN PHILLY

La'Keshia Frett, the greatest girls high school basketball player this state has ever turned out, was coming home.

Gone to the University of Georgia for four years, where she enjoyed an outstanding career that ended with All-American status, Frett was poised for a worthy return.

Suddenly, she didn't have to go overseas to play professionally, what with two American women's leagues popping up where there had been none. Brimming with welcome choices, Frett picked the winter American Basketball League over the summertime Women's NBA for a few reasons - money, time of season and caliber of play, to name three.

There was also a fourth: the chance to play for the ABL's Richmond Rage, a few 3-pointers away from her family and friends in Hampton. The Rage made Frett its territorial draft choice and signed her to a two-year contract, reportedly for a little less than $100,000 per season. The ducks were in their row.

Then the moving vans arrived, with barely any notice. And just like that Richmond was in the rear view mirror as the Rage motored up I-95 to Philadelphia.

The Richmond Rage was history, stifled by lack of interest - average attendance was 3,139, sixth in the eight-team league - and the underexposed ABL's desperation to infiltrate a major TV market, lest it get blown off the map by the less-talented but mega-marketed WNBA.

So the Rage is in Philly, which isn't true of Frett, who talks softly and, yes, frets little. She is unfamiliar with her new city, knows no one on the Rage and can't tell you where the team will hold training camp next month or play its games.

No big deal. She figures she'll find out when she needs to find out. As for being deprived of performing regularly for the home folks, well, that's show business, Frett says. It would have been nice, but ...

``You have to understand that,'' says Frett, a 6-foot-3 forward. ``Things like this can happen in the profession that I'm in now. You have to understand, I want something from them and in return they want something from me.''

Points, rebounds and blocked shots, for instance. Plenty of each. Why should the Rage want anything different from what Frett gave Phoebus High School and Georgia in barrels?

Frett, 22, scored 3,290 points at Phoebus, the most ever by a female or male high school player in Virginia. At Georgia, Frett made All-Southeastern Conference three times and led the Bulldogs to two NCAA tournament Final Fours with a career scoring average of 15.2 points per game, or 1,850 total points.

Those last numbers could have been much higher, everybody knows that. That isn't Frett. The team was her emphasis, which is why Frett finished in Georgia's all-time Top 10 in scoring, rebounding, assists and blocked shots.

``I could've scored more points, all I had to do was shoot more,'' says Frett, who left Friday to try out for the United States team that will play in the World University Games this month. ``But on that level, when you have great players beside you, that doesn't even become a goal.''

Collecting a check to play ball in America? Frett can't say that was ever a goal either until lately, because it was never an option. Why deal in fantasy? School was always her first priority, she says, and Frett proved it by earning her degree in consumer economics in four years.

``I feel blessed and lucky to be able to play here in the States,'' Frett says. ``There's nothing like being in the U.S. compared to somewhere else.''

Philly included.

Yo, it's not Richmond. But really now, what is? ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS/File color photo

La'Keshia Frett could be all the Rage with the ABL in Philly.

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