There are as many little boys as little girls, you notice. Hanging over the railing, calling her name, wearing her jersey number and wanting to be just like her, all of which probably shouldn’t be surprising except, unfortunately, it still is.
She is 6-foot-2, 21 years old, wears a long ponytail with a light blue “scrunchie” holding it in place and assumes, if not the burden, then certainly the expectation of carrying her sport and marketing her name into the millennium.
Four years ago, she was the most sought-after high school basketball player in the nation. Still, it seemed unlikely that she would develop into a household name considering that her name is Chamique Holdsclaw.
Every sports fan with a passing acquaintance of women’s basketball knows it is pronounced Shuh-Meek-Wah; that she is one of the three “Meeks” (along with a Semeka and a Tamika) on the powerful University of Tennessee Lady Vols; and that she is widely considered the most gifted female player the game has ever produced.
See if this sounds familiar. Holdsclaw requires security guards for road games and no longer can go to the local mall if she intends to actually do any shopping because she is instantly swarmed by people of all ages asking for her autograph, to shake her hand or to simply get a close-up look at No. 23 in person.
A couple of years ago, a comic strip in Tennessee showed a little boy and his father watching Michael Jordan on TV. “Look dad,” the boy said. “That guy has Chamique’s number.”
Don’t laugh.
She has never lost a championship game in her basketball career. Never. Four straight at Christ the King High School in Queens, N.Y. Three straight at Tennessee as the Lady Vols steam ahead in this year’s NCAA tournament. This would be the first time in history that a women’s team won four straight NCAA championships, the first time any basketball player has won eight straight.
And Holdsclaw does not intend to lose.
In her final game at Thompson-Boling Arena on the campus of the University of Tennessee last Monday night, in the second round of the NCAA tournament, she tied her career-high of 39 points. It looked like she could score 50 if she desired.
The Lady Vols’ opponent that night, Boston College, played perhaps its best 20 minutes of the season in a see-saw first half. See-saw, because every time Boston College mounted a charge, Holdsclaw would calmly drain a little fall-away in the lane, a 15-foot jumper, a reverse layup off a steal. She missed only twice in 11 shots in the first half and only three times in her first 16 attempts as the Lady Vols teased their opponents before routing them in the second half.
One notices first the ease of her game, an apparent effortlessness that at times belies her drive and intensity, a style that her coach, the legendary Pat Summitt, likens to that of the top-ranked men’s tennis player, Pete Sampras.
But as Holdsclaw lopes up court, her grace brings to mind another male athlete. “People want to compare her to Michael,” Summitt says, “but I think she’s a lot more like Scottie Pippen.”
If that sounds like quite a bit to live up to, it gets worse. Consider that the current holder of the Sullivan Award as best amateur athlete, male or female, in the country is also the latest in a long line of women’s basketball players counted on to transcend the game and bring it into the consciousness of “mainstream” male sports fans.
That has been a lofty goal of the sport since the advent of Title IX allowed female high school and college athletes to compete on an even playing field with males some 25 years ago. But two years after the successful launch of the WNBA, the most impressive of several attempts at starting a professional league, women can say with some confidence that they are getting closer to the men’s level.
“Right now it’s probably the hottest women’s sport and it’s only going to get better,” said Holdsclaw. “I think as time evolves, it will compare to the men’s game.”
Holdsclaw will, in large part, hold the key.
“She is the most complete collegiate player I’ve ever seen,” said Nancy Lieberman-Cline, one of the pioneers of the women’s game and the general manager and head coach of the WNBA’s Detroit Shock. “She doesn’t wow you with flash and dash, she just does the job night after night and in pressure situations. The more pressure, the more she comes through. Real basketball purists will see that. They don’t need you to raise the roof or pound your chest.”
WNBA President Val Ackerman clearly can’t wait to get Holdsclaw into her league. “If anybody can help bring in the casual mainstream fan,” Ackerman said, “it’s her.”
There is still some distance to go. The average attendance during the WNBA season that ended in September was 10,869, representing a 12 percent increase over the previous year, with about 350 members of the print media credentialed for the league finals. But a majority of newspapers in league cities did not even send reporters on the road during the season and several did not cover the WNBA Finals.
By comparison, the average attendance thus far for the strike-shortened post-Jordan NBA season is 16,374. More than 1,650 members of the media attended last year’s NBA Finals between Chicago and Utah.
For the women’s college championship game, an estimated 18,000 fans are expected to fill San Jose Arena next Sunday, with between 400 and 500 media members expected. In the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament, the women, playing at the top seed’s home arenas, have drawn an average attendance of 6,796.
The men’s Final Four has sold out the 41,392-seat Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg next weekend with approximately 1,000 media members requesting credentials. In the first two rounds of the tournament, all played at neutral sites, the men’s games have drawn an average attendance of 17,920.
Tennessee, of course, is another world. The Lady Vols broke the all-time attendance record for women’s basketball last year with a crowd of 24,597 for a Tennessee-Connecticut game. They average 16,000-plus. “Obviously,” said Debby Jennings, Tennessee’s sports information director for women’s athletics, “the Holdsclaw era has made a major impact.”
How big an impact will Holdsclaw be able to make on the pro level? She likely will be the league’s top draft choice, which would land her in Washington, D.C., with the Mystics, a team that despite its 27 losses in the 30-game season, still averaged 15,910 fans per game.
Ann Meyers, another pioneer of the women’s game and an analyst for ESPN, said luck and timing will be as important as ability in determining how big a star Holdsclaw becomes.
“No question, Chamique is a very talented player, but it’s unfair for all of us to say she’s the next coming of Michael Jordan,” Meyers said. “Would she have been able to develop if she didn’t play for Pat Summitt? Would she be marketed if she wasn’t playing in the Final Four every year and constantly on TV?”
Some optimists have estimated Holdsclaw’s potential income in her first season in the WNBA at $2 million to $3 million, which includes the relatively modest maximum salary of about $70,000. The consensus, however, is that she’ll become the first woman in the league to break the $1 million barrier in endorsements, despite the fact that sponsors not associated with the WNBA are restricted from using a player’s likeness during the season, thus cutting down on earnings potential.
“I think she has the attributes, the skills, the image, the personality and the kind of values that can be embraced by a wide range of corporate America,” said sports agent Leonard Armato, who represents Los Angeles Lakers star Shaquille O’Neal and Lisa Leslie, a former Olympian and current star for the WNBA’s L.A. Sparks. “With the right positioning and marketing, she has the opportunity to break new ground in this area. There’s tremendous potential for her.”
Holdsclaw, a product of “very, very humble beginnings” in the Astoria Houses project in Queens, calls herself “street smart” but is also unassuming by nature. The No. 23 is not, it turns out, for Michael Jordan, though meeting him a few years ago was a personal highlight. Instead it is in deference to the 23rd Psalm, a favorite of hers and her grandmother, June, who raised Chamique and her brother after their parents divorced.
She naturally deflects questions from reporters that she feels bring too much attention on herself. She was sheepish last week after her simple and touching gesture of kissing the orange Tennessee logo at center court as she exited her final home game. “I talked about it with (teammate) Kellie (Jolly) and said `No, I’m not going to do it, it’s kind of cheesy,’ ” Holdsclaw laughed.
But on the court, Holdsclaw claims she is capable of some flamboyance if necessary. “I like structure, I like to know where to go,” she said. “Of course, if it’s an open system, you’ll see more flair, more flashiness. The key to my game is that I don’t even know what I’m going to do, it just comes naturally, It’s just a blessing. I never know what to expect and then I’m like, `Wow.’ “
Lieberman-Cline expects Holdsclaw’s game to open up as well. “It’s almost a cliche, but people used to say that the only person who could hold Michael Jordan to under 20 points a game was (then-North Carolina coach) Dean Smith,” she said. “Well, I think the only person who can hold Chamique to under 25 is Pat Summitt.”
The women’s game continues to improve each year. Players are, on average, taller and more agile than they were even five years ago. And thanks to the WNBA, officials have become noticeably more lenient, thus speeding up a game that can’t help but compare unfavorably to the men on an unforgiving television screen.
But much of sports’ broad appeal lies with its heroes, its stars, its legends. When it comes down to it, it will be Holdsclaw, in her unique style, who will succeed or fail to elevate her sport into the fabric of pop culture.
Lieberman-Cline said the women are “in no position to make demands.”
“If you never saw what the guys have, you’d say, `Gosh, look at all the women’s games on TV, all the opportunities, the fact that they’re playing before 10,000-15,000 a night’ and be really happy,” said Lieberman-Cline. “But the guys have shown over a 50-year period where you can go and we shouldn’t stop aspiring to have that exposure or those salaries.
“Still, we have to remember we’re in year three professionally and we’re building our history. I think we shouldn’t be too patient, but we have to be prudent. We as women athletes have a lot to prove. You haven’t seen the best of our game yet. One day people will talk about (Olympian Teresa) Edwards and Holdsclaw and it will be like talking about Bob Cousy and Elgin Baylor.
“They’re going to say, `They were good for girls, but little Sally Sue? She’s incredible.’ “
