I’ll never forget walking into Madison Square Garden back in 1997 to see a live New York Liberty WNBA basketball game during the league’s inaugural season. I was giddy with glee and enamored.
I loved the WNBA for starting such a league! And it’s very different from the WNBA today.
MEMORIES OF LOVE
You see, up until then, I’d gotten my fill of women’s sports either by playing organized sports myself or by watching NCAA women’s college basketball games on TV. For organized women’s sports, the pickings were slim for what I could see on TV. It all depended on what the major networks (ABC, CBS, & NBC) deemed to be “of interest” to their viewing audience.
Up until then, I don’t know if I – a Black, Jamaican-American, inner city, Bronx-born girl living in a slumlord apartment with my single mom – “fit” the TV sports’ targeted viewing audience demographic. I’d spent childhood years watching the predominant collegiate and professional men’s leagues. Tennis and golf had women participants and leagues. Even my beloved sport of softball had collegiate games that sometimes appeared on television and in the Olympics. I watched what TV doled out to me. But my “next level” playing appetite and aspirations remained unsatiated on a personal level because no one looked like me.
The WNBA offered me something different. While I was not a little girl in 1997, the images of:
- Teresa Weatherspoon’s half-court shot
- Cynthia (Coop”) Cooper’s seminal ball handling skills and prolific scoring (at the time)
- Lisa Leslie’s beautiful elegance, grace, and agility on and off the court
- Tina Thompson’s incessant grit, determination, and intensity
…all connected with me, as a young Black, Jamaican-American woman early in my career. To see these accomplished elite black women athletes take center stage in a professional league did something to me inside. It spoke to my psyche. It spoke to me of possibilities; that someone who looked like me could ascend to prominent status…and “make bank.”
I not only loved the WNBA, but I also loved the WNBA players.
To put it plainly: the early years of the WNBA inspired me!
MEMORIES OF LOVE INSPIRED BY WNBA PLAYERS
The inspiration moved me to purchase my first ticket to attend a professional (women’s) basketball game during its inaugural season. I even willingly shelled out money to buy much merch, including a Theresa Weatherspoon’s jersey. I loved her tenacity and never-say-die fire. As the season went on, I also became a huge Houston Comets Cynthia Cooper fan; and bought her jersey, too. So, you can imagine how torn I was when the Comets and the Liberty met in the first WNBA championship finals! As I watched that game (on TV), I alternated wearing each jersey. But I digress…
The early years of the WNBA gave me the kind of inspiration at that time in my life. I was married, living in a suburban home, working three part-time jobs while going through my doctoral graduate program, and endeavoring to start and build a family with my BFF hubby.
The long hours, hard awork, and juggling demands all felt relatable to these elite athletes who sacrificially dedicated long hours, worked hard, and juggled their own life demands to attain their professional goals. For me, four years after the WNBA’s started, the demands in my life increased two-fold as my BFF hubby and I welcomed the arrival of our twin daughters!
As a mom, it felt good to be raising daughters in a WNBA-era. Being part of an aspect of the women’s movement community excited me. As an athlete myself (and sport psychologist), my mantras of “Sport is life. Life is sport.” is something our daughters heard me say a lot. And I’d often give examples of different WNBA players and player storylines as reference points so that my daughters could “see someone who looks like them” (outside of their mommy, of course😊) achieving their goals.
Back then, it was easy to find those reference points. I could readily see WNBA players in various TV commercials, talk shows, billboards, and other media platforms. The marquis players were:
- women (which was important to me)
- who looked like me (which was even more important…to me as a mom of daughters).
FALLEN OUT OF LOVE
However, over the years, a shift began to happen in the landscape of the WNBA. The league became unrelatable to me, as a sports fan, woman, mom, and mom of daughters. The league felt contrived, confused, and lost. To me it felt like the spark faded as the organization’s financials and focus f**ked up a good thing. It didn’t have to be like that, but it was. It didn’t have to end up like that, but it did. For me, the fun was gone. My love for the WNBA was gone. And I hated the WNBA for letting things get to that point.
For nearly two decades, I stopped watching or attending WNBA games. Instead, during that time, I turned my attention to the “purity” of the sport at the collegiate level.
That has all changed for me in 2024 with the arrival of “The Caitlin Clarke Era” of the WNBA.
I (now) love the player and hate the WNBA today.
I think The Caitlin Clarke Effect is highlighting how the WNBA is doing more damage than good to women, women’s sports, and the women’s movement.
In my next series of blogs (“Why I Hate The WNBA”), I plan to share my thoughts on:
- The WNBA: Redefining The Token™
- The WNBA: A Women’s Movement Setback™
- The WNBA & The “Elephant” In The Room™
- The Miss-Education Of Caitlin Clark: Lessons For Motherhood™
The WNBA, women, and the women’s movement need to stop and take a hard look at themselves before it’s too late to reverse the tide.
If you have a daughter who is an athlete who wants to take her game to the “next level,” then SCHEDULE A SPORT CONSULTATION CALL WITH ME.
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