The Observer, April 6, 2007
Volume XXXIX, Issue 23
A new perspective on women's basketball
"Please step back! Look out!" Bill, the undersized, stout security guard with a balding head showing signs of gray hair shouted as we, "the media," walked off the employee elevator at Quicken Loans Arena after eating a free dinner of green beans, potatoes, chicken, and roast beef.
The Tennessee Lady Volunteers were arriving at the arena about an hour before their national championship tip-off against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, and they had to get to the locker room unscathed. Yes, the Tennessee Lady Vols.
The opportunity to cover the Women's Final Four basically fell into my lap about a month or so ago when I attended a seminar presented by well known USA Today writer Christine Brennan.
Cool, I thought, but it was girls. At the time, I put the old George Brett quote to use and said "it's like kissing your sister." Sure, I finally got the opportunity to do something big, like attend the Final Four with a media pass and pretty much go anywhere my feet decided to wander. But it was girls.
Either way, I bragged to my friends and family, that I submitted a paper, won a contest, and got to cover the Final Four. The response I received from most was about as exuberant as the thoughts in my head. "Awesome man," one friend said, "why don't they just give you a ball and put you on the floor? It will be more entertaining." I just smiled and said nothing, when I should have spoken up.
I arrived at the Q on Saturday morning without any assignment to write, and any mentor to take me through things. Basically I was throwing myself into the unknown, kind of like a little kid who can't swim, only I had no orange floatees to wear around my arms. So instead of someone putting me out there and saying "swim," it was more like leading me into a pool with rocks tied to my feet to drown.
But, with all floatation devices aside, I tried to make the most of my opportunity and get in nice with the reporters there. Press conferences, locker room interviews, and what they call "break out sessions," where players are put in individual rooms to answer questions from the press, were all part of my daily agenda.
Once again, I threw myself into the fire, possibly to be burned by some of my very own questions. I didn't want to be that guy in the back who people look over their shoulder at and wonder "Did he really just say that?" I didn't want to look stupid. In the end, I felt great, because I didn't look like an idiot by asking irrelevent, fifth-grade questions.
Throughout all these attempts to become involved in the life that a sportswriter faces every day, I developed an avid appreciation for women's basketball. What those friends had said earlier in the week was ringing in my ears, and for some reason, I myself was on the verge of becoming offended. They just didn't understand.
After being here for four days, I can officially say I am a women's college basketball fan. It may have been love at first sight, but it happened sometime between Saturday and Tuesday, and it was no April Fools' Joke.
I have been to practices, talked to the players, and sat courtside for three Final Four games, one being the National Championship, when just prior to last week, the only NCAA women's basketball game I had ever watched was the 2001 National Championship when Notre Dame beat Purdue.
So to my friends, the ones who made those earlier comments, those who are still in the dark about women's college basketball, I have seen many, many Cavs games in Quicken Loans Arena, and now three women's NCAA games there as well. These three were more exciting to me than any Cavs game I have ever been to.
Late Tuesday night, as the clock ran out for the championship game, and the Tennessee Lady Volunteers were crowned the new National Champions, I tried to pinpoint the exact moment that changed my mentality on women's college basketball. It was just the other day that Rutgers' head coach C. Vivian Stringer said, "Players will play, coaches will coach, and writers will write." And from now on, I will love women's college basketball.
