I've been practicing my detached media observer poker face for years now. I can remain impassive with the best of them amid tragedies, both human and political.
But it's harder when it comes to women's basketball. Especially when the likes of coaching royalty Pat Summitt and Kay Yow walk into the gym. Add to them two of the best point guards ever to deliver a no-look or slash through the trees to the hoop, Teresa Edwards and Dawn Staley, all in the same old-school gym and -- wow -- it was all I could do not to do anything unprofessional, like swoon like a Southern debutante with the vapors.
Here were four of the five women who made me a basketball fan in the first place. If Cheryl Miller had entered the courts at John Jay College on Saturday as the U.S. women's national basketball team practiced, my career would have ended right there. I'd have leapt up and down on the bleachers and screamed and cried like a teenage girl at a 1964 Beatles concert.
It is the image of Miller, arms raised and fists clenched in gold medal victory wearing her USA jersey and running up the court that is forever seared in my mind from the 1984 Olympics. And until a few months ago that photo, clipped from a newspaper and yellowed with the years, hung on my childhood bedroom door back in Philadelphia until my mom after years of nagging me to do it myself took it down with the clippings of my teenage idols. No, no Duran Duran for me. It was Miller, Evelyn Ashford, Carl Lewis and Mary Decker. But Miller's was the biggest.
In those days, very little women's basketball could be found on TV. We didn't have cable. No ESPN. It was rare to catch a women's game, but my first memory is of Miller at USC, circa 1983. I have no idea who she and the McGee twins were playing, but I was hooked. She had more moves than Doctor J -- and personality. She practically leapt through the screen and grabbed my shoulders and yelped, "You gotta watch this!"
And I did. And then there was my contemporary, Staley, a Philly girl with tiny legs, big hands and a bigger heart who tore up the high school courts and went on to the University of Virginia. The only time she'd be on TV was come tournament time, and it seemed she was almost always losing to Tennessee, playing a spectacular game but falling just a little short. Tennessee was just too good. And who is that crazy woman yelling on the sidelines? I was drawn to Summitt at first like a car wreck. Couldn't stop staring. But then the more I heard and read about her, the more awed I became until I became -- after Dawn graduated from Virginia -- a Tennessee fan.
And then there was Yow, who could be just as fiery as Summitt but with a more quiet dignity. She was Summitt's assistant as coach of the '84 Olympic team. And her NC State team had some classic matchups with ACC rival Virginia -- and Dawn Staley.
I'd really only get to see Edwards every four years -- in five Olympics in which she won four golds and a bronze -- starting in 1984. But, wow, could she shake and bake!
So when I looked around the gym Saturday, as Anne Donovan, another standout from that 1984 gold medal team, coached 10 members of the women's national team with the assistance of Staley as Edwards, Summitt and Yow watched, I couldn't help but wonder: Where IS everyone?
Coming off all the hoops and hype of the latest incarnation of the men's "Dream Team" Olympics qualifying tournament in Las Vegas, here was an exercise in contrasts.
Sure, the best of the best of the women's team either aren't here yet because six of them are still competing in the WNBA Finals (Diana Taurasi, Cappie Pondexter, Swin Cash, Deanna Nolan, Cheryl Ford and Katie Smith) or they aren't coming because of injury (Tamika Catchings, Katie Douglas, Lindsey Harding) or motherhood (Lisa Leslie) or impending marriage (Lindsay Whalen).
Still, there was Staley's heir-apparent, Sue Bird; Alana Beard and Seimone Augustus, who play with Miller-like skills; sharp-shooter Kara Lawson; the ageless Delisha Milton-Jones; young post player Jessica Davenport; and some of the best collegians: Candace Parker, Sylvia Fowles, Courtney Paris and Candice Wiggins.
So, where was the press?
I was there, on my own time, and mused with the only two other newshounds (from the AP and Hartford Courant) there that here we are in the media capital of the world and there are only three of us watching this assembly of basketball greatness. The previous evening, the first day of training camp, there were five of us but only two were from mainstream media organizations (Newsday and the AP).
What gives? Yes, real fans will find a way to get their women's basketball news if they really look for it, and it very likely won't be through the mainstream media. But why not make it easier for them? The Hartford Courant has women's basketball beat writers, so do the Tennessee papers and the Seattle Times, all of them are in areas where women's basketball -- college or pro -- have very loyal followings. Which came first, the following or the media? Unclear.
But it is clear to Yow.
“It’s about media writing about it, helping the public to know what’s going on, to gain interest in it, to know the players,” she said. “Media is everything, really.”
It was to me.