1996 Ad

Sheryl Smoopes is as swift and graceful as her name suggests She can drive and dive and has deadly aim from the perimeter. His Airness has even had to give this sister her props.

But unlike Jordan, who was rewarded with all the trappings of NBA fame after his successful college career, Swoopes, who scored a record 47 points to lead Texas Tech to the 1993 NCAA women's championship, had nowhere to go after college. Yes, she signed a lucrative endorsement deal with Nike, but she was unable to play professionally on American soil.

With no league of her own, after graduation Swoopes had no choice but to go overseas, which boasts more opportunities players than this side of the Atlantic. She gritted her teeth through only three months of play in Italy, then broke her contract and returned home. One of the finiest female players the United States has ever produced, Swoopes was reduced to keeping in shape playing pickup games with guys, her then-husband-to-be standing by as her bodyguard in case of scraps.

But that was then and this is 1996. Turn on the TV and you can see Swoopes, 25, and teammates Lisa Leslie and Dawn Staley shaking and baking, driving and diving in their own Spike Lee-narrated Nike commercial. The company has even named a pair of shoes after Sheryl-Air Swoopes--making her the only female layer to have a celebrity sneaker. And with a new, viable professional league on the horizon, this is, clearly, a new era for women's basketball.

But the success of the new league and the future of the sport are resting uneasily on the shoulders of the 11 members of the USA Basketball Women's National Team --known as the "home team"--which includes Swoopes, Leslie, Staley and five other sisters. If this team, which will also be the Olympic team, can create excitement, capture the gold for the first time since 1988 and draw big TV audiences, the players on the home team will finally be able to get what they crave: a home.

THE TEAM

On this brisk fall afternoon at the United States Olympic Training Cener in Colorado Springs, several members of the home team are doing what they do best: hooping it up. Dawn Staley dribbles between her legs. Katrina McClain clears a rebound from, yes, high off the backboard. Teresa Edwards hits a fadeaway with hands in her face. And Lisa Leslie politely rejects Ruthie Bolton's attempted layup. Seconds later Bolton responds by nailing a 15-footer. These sisters, of assorted hues and sizes, backgrounds and spiritual denominations, thrown together for nine grueling months of practices and exhibition games, have a common goal. Staley, a two-time college player of the year from the University of Virginia, sums it up simply: "Everything is the gold."

Teresa Edwards, the oldest member of the team at 31 and now a four-time Olympian, would love a gold; it would look nice alongside the gold medals she earned in 1984 and 1988 and the bronze she brought home from Barcelona in 1992. Despite all her experience--the two-time University of Georgia All-American played professional ball in Italy, Spain, France and Japan--Edwards chuckles at the suggestion that her younger teammates consider her a role model.

"They're just saving that to be nice," says Edwards, the first American basketball player, male or female, to compete in four Olympics. "I'm not Mother Teresa, but I'm glad I'm in a position to inspire."

Making the 1996 team is especially meaningful for the five-foot eleven-inch guard and forward. "It was very emotional. I couldn't stop crying. It means a lot, because this is probably the last U.S. team I'll be a part of. It's real special that the Games will be in Atlanta. That's exciting for me and my family."

Edwards's former college teammate, Katrina McClain, has another distinction: She's the world's highest-paid woman player. Starting for Japan's Kyodo Petroleum team last year, the six-foot two-inch forward reportedly pulled in a quarter of a million dollars. Contemplating the loss of income--USA basketball players earn $50,000 for the year--McClain made the decision to join the national team with just one hour to spare before the deadline for notifying officials. "We're doing something for women's basketball," says McClain, 29. "I'm giving up something because there's something I'd like to achieve."

Lisa Leslie put her "side" career on hold for the national team. When not playing ball, the statuesque six-foot five-inch Leslie moonlights as a runway model. Leslie's height came in handy for her in high school. She made headlines by scoring 101 points in one half of a game at Morningside High School in Inglewood and went on to star at the University of Souther California.

Making the team has been a double blessing for Carla McGhee. IN 1987, while a freshman at the University of Tennessee, she survived a near-fatal automobile accident. "I remember sitting on the passenger's side, and a truck pulled out and hit us. It was a five-car wreck."

McGhee suffered injuries to her head, hip and jaw and broke all but two bones in her face. She was comatose for five days, and doctors were certain she'd never play basketball again. "There's no doubt that God gave me my life back. I wasn't supposed to live, play basketball or even walk again. It means a lot for me to be on this team. I don't take anything for granted."

Being an Olympian also has a deeper meaning for Ruthie Bolton, 28. She plays to honor her mother, who died last year of cancer, and elder sister Mae Ola, who played three seasons with her at Auburn but didn't make the Olympic cut in 1988. "If we do win it, I'll dedicate it to them. My sister tried out, but never got to realize that dream. My family is the most important thing to me."

Singing is her second love. The sixteenth of 20 children, Bolton grew up performing in her father's chirch in McCalin, Mississippi. She was the first American woman to play professionally in Hungary and Sweden and probably the first player ever in Italy to go from gospel to belting ballads in Italian. "When I got to Italy, some of the players knew I loved singing. Pretty soon I was singing in a band."

Now, each day before practice, Bolton, who is also a first lieutenant in the army reserves, has the team singing army drill songs during laps around the gym. (Bolton isn't the team's only singer: Guard Nikki McCary of the University of tennessee performed the national anthem at several of her college games.) "They seem to enjoy it. I started doing it four years ago, and each time I play on a national team, they ask me to do it again."

A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN

Playing for their country means a lot to these devoted sisters. But playing in this country is infinitely more meaningful. For more years than any of them care to remember, women basketball players have had to pursue their hoop dreams overseas after college. "At first you are bitter for having to go over ther and play," says Edwards,who spent nine years overseas. "But once you get past the cultural shock, you're just thankful for the chance to play and see the world for free. I look at it as a blessing."

Add Staley, who played pro in Italy, France, Spain and Brazil, "You know in your heart you should be making $84 million like Larry Johnson--your skills are equal to or better than those of some NBA players. But once you realize an NBA contract isn't possible, you let it go."

But with the advent of the American Basketball League (ABL), which will start up in October, it's a different ball game. Nine out of 11 of theplayers on the home team have signed on to the league, which will have teams in eight to 12 cities. The founders are already talking TV coverage and player salaries averaging $70,000. "I'm excited," says Bolton, who played again. I started liking me again. I started seeing that my children weren't lost to me. There was hope. I started practicing what they teach in rehab: Go to those people you have hurt and make amends.

Through it all, my mother never lost faith in me. I owe everything to her. I'm self-employed as a seamstress now. I sing in church. I'm going to court to get my four children back from my relatives. My children need me, and I need them. However long I have to wait, I'll have my children back. I have hope. A lot of hope.

God is very deep in my life. Whenever I become weak, feeling like there is no hope, instead of turning to the pipe, I just say, Help me, God. He sends me wonderful thoughts, and I maintain my sobriety. I'm proud of my life. Even the part with the drugs, because it's only by going through all those things that I know where I'm supposed to be now. I haven't given up, and I won t give up.

DAWN, 29, Los Angeles, assistant at a major movie studio, clean for 1bur years: The first time I tried crack, I was hanging out with my girlfriend at this rich guy's house in Beverly Hills. I remember this really sweet, sweet smell. I couldn't move. It was like I was flying away somewhere. The guy said to me, "Whatever you do, don't die." But then it was over. After that, I found myself wanting to chase that feeling.

I come from an interracial family. My father's White; my mother's Black. I'm a movie brat. My dad's a film executive. I never knew what it was to need anything.

I started getting drunk when I was 9. By myself. I would sneak my dad's Jack Daniel's and drink it. I was such a loner. I would stuff my feelings inside and do things just for the thrill of it. I was the kid who would run across the street when the traffic light was red.

I was kicked out of my first private school while in the seventh grade. Soon I was hopping from private school to private school, learning enough about smoking pot and drinking and hanging out with rich White kids before I would get kicked out again.

When I was 16, I got pregnant. I hid it for seven months, but my parents found out and made me give the baby up for adoption. That was so hard. After that, my rebellion kicked in. I dropped out of school and got my GED. One day I was hanging out at a friend's house getting high on crack, when he blew his brains out. At first the police thought I had shot him. It was awful. You would think that would've slowed me down, but it didn't.

Because of my background, I never had financial responsibilities. I always had great jobs, made great money. Then, through my girlfriend, I met the man who would father two of my children. His name was Andre, and he had just gotten out of jail for selling drugs. He was drop-dead gorgeous. We moved into a drug dealer's house for a time and did drugs for 30 days straight. The day I found out I was pregnant, Andre got arrested again for selling drugs. I waited for him. I was in love, and my pregnancy inspired me: I got my own apartment. I got clean. I found a great job working in a hotel, and I got into a spiritual practice, living a vegetarian life. I felt that this child would allow me to tell my parents, "You can't take this away from me." I was 23.

But six months later, Andre got out of jail. Within three days, he started getting loaded. I held out for a while, but soon after my son was born, I began dibbling and dabbling in crack again. And I got pregnant again. I was blessed when my second son was born drugfree. By this time, I had moved back in with my parents. Andre got arrested on drug charges again, and I crossed over the line. I was using every day. I would tell myself it was because I was in a relationship from hell. I didn't see the part I was playing in my own addiction.

At lunchtime, I would take the bus to the park, buy some crack and smoke it as I walked back to work. In the office I would be so high I couldn't sit still behind my desk. I,d be tweaking and twitching and biting my lips. Eventually I got fired because I stole money from them: $800. But they never pressed charges. These people still had such confidence in me. You see, I was a nice middle-class girl.

This disease had me believing that I was getting away with something. I started to believe I had some kind of power. It was like crack was saying "See, Dawn, see what you can get away with? See what I can do for you?"

Because I had a nanny, it was easy for me to push off my responsibilities. I wouldn't get out of bed to change a diaper, but I would get out of bed to cop a hit. And yet I adored my children. That's what was killing me. I would try to sit with them, but I would get this hunger, this urge to get high. Sometimes I would just sit and stare at them and cry, writing letters to them in case I died.

You could see my bones. You could see green in my colon I was crazy. Paranoid. And cocky. I thought I could go outside and beat up drug dealers and take their drugs.

The last four months of my using, I stayed loaded every day. Brushing my teeth and combing my hair were a chore. I pawned everything in the house. Stole from my mother. Turned the nanny on to crack to keep her mouth shut. Finally my mother told me I could either get help or go to jail.

Then one day I drove by a rehab center, The Natural High, a men's recovery house. It was like I was divinely guided. I walked in with nothing but my roller skates and the clothes on my back, and they helped me find a residential facility.

I found recovery in South Central Los Angeles. After about six months of clean living, I got pregnant again. I didn't realize there was more to being sober than just not drinking and using. By the time I had been dry for 13 my high wore off, I finally broke down. I agreed to get treatment. My parents were shocked, hurt. "Not my little girl," they said. They knew I had a problem, but they hadn't known what the problem was. People don't like to face facts.

As long as I was in rehab, my recovery was working. I even got a job at the clinic. I met my husband there. We had a baby together. But I wasn't ready. Neither was he. We,d be all right for a little while, and then we,d start using again.

When you hear people saying every time you pick up the pipe, it gets worse, believe them. I ended up in a Harlem crack house, smoking for three days straight. I didn't eat. I didn't wash. I said, "I don't need these earrings. This bracelet. This chain." I never thought I would sell my things for drugs. And when the money was gone, I just felt, Now what? That day I told myself if I could find one quarter to make a phone call, I would go back into rehab. I found my last quarter in a corner of my bag, and I made that call.

I had to find a new way to recover. The people at my old clinic didn't really help. If you relapsed, it was like, "You again?" I entered a 12-step outpatient recovery program, going from 2 P.M. to 6 P.M. each day, plus Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings at least five times a week. The people at the recovery program showered me with love. My counselors weren't so much into the drugs I was using as they were interested in my everyday problems. They told me, "You have to find out why you do what you do, and you have to understand how you've dealt with your problems, from your childhood on."

I stayed clean for a year, but then I got high. Once. And I called my counselors. They said, "Brush yourself off." They explained that you mentally relapse before you actually pick up.. the drug. They put me in detox for seven days and then in a 15-day residential program. They said, "You've got to do this for you." I'm really glad I went. They told me not to feel guilty about the things I had done and to talk and deal with my problems, to see the part I had played in them instead of pointing fingers.

I still had my problems. My husband and I had separated, and I was feeling feelings. But my program gave me tools. I kept going to my meetings, getting stronger in God and getting strong in the community.

When I went into the program, I willingly gave up my kids to my mother's care. But it felt so good to stand before the judge and have him say, "Here, you can have the kids back." I had asked God, Lord, when You know that I am ready, give me a good place where my kids and I can have our space, and we can learn about one another. And that's what He gave me. Now I have a nice place of my own. I went back to school. I pay my bills. I can cry with my kids about my problems now. It's no secret. They know what I've been through, but now I know my Higher Power is God. The way I used to chase the drug, that's the same way I chase my recovery.

Teresa Wiltz is a writer for the Chicago Tribune.

COPYRIGHT 1996 Essence Communications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group