Back to the Farm

Hey, we have some basketball news that actually pertains to the current Stanford women’s basketball team. The USA Women's Basketball team is playing in the World University Games in Belgrade, Serbia, and two of our girls are there (The third, Jayne Appel, withdrew because of knee surgery, remember?)

Stanford’s Kayla Pederson had nine points and 11 rebounds to help Team USA win 115-78 against the Czech Republic. Team USA is 5-0 and now advances to the medal semifinals and plays Australia on Thursday. And our Jeanette Pohlen added four points, three assists and a team-high three steals in the game. The coach is ex-Stanford Player Charli Turner Thorne.

If you want to watch the finals, they are set for July 11^th; you just have to get up at 6 AM PT to be part of it.

The U19 USA team is getting their roster set for the World Championships in Bangkok, Thailand beginning July 23. Another Stanford player, Nnemkadi Ogwumike is on the team. Then we discover that another Stanford player, Sarah Boothe (Boooo-the, we like to yell) is out with a stress fracture in her right foot. She had surgery in June! No one told us! Dang, we hate that all our players are getting hurt and having surgeries.

We just hope everyone comes back healthy and happy, and with a gold medal.

Candice Takin' Over

Candice Wiggins won her third straight game and scored over 20 points for the third straight game. Well, she had help from her Minnesota Lynx teammates, mostly ex-Tennessee Nicky Anosike, who added 20 and 10 rebounds. This time they beat the Atlanta Dream. Last year, Candice took a backseat role when Seimone Augustus was the star scorer, but she has come out of her shell since losing Seimone Augustus for the season with a torn ACL. Next up is the Sacramento Monarchs, with rookie Courtney Paris, who is only averaging 3 points a game.

And the other Candace, Candace Parker came back to The LA Sparks practice after having a baby girl May 13th. Lisa Leslie is also out for the Sparks with a sprained knee. No wonder the Sparks are hurting.

And, oh, check out Candace Parker in Time Magazine. She gets to answer 10 questions. Imagine, a mainstream media mag paying attention to women's sports, even if it was only 10 questions! She gives some really great answers, too. And oh, they have the interview online as a video, and it has even more detailed answers.

Speaking of the WNBA, they called. Well, the emailed us at little ol C and R to tell us about the Fast Break to Reading Program, an initiative created by Pitney Bowes and the WNBA to promote child literacy. The goal of the program is to have children log a collective one million reading minutes by the end of the summer. You can visit our site, Fast Break to Reading, to learn more details and find out how to get involved. We love when we get noticed by big time sites like the WNBA, and we do love reading, as well as basketball, so there is your plug of the day.

Candice and an Epiphanny

See, see, didn’t we tell you Candice would have to pick up the slack? For those of you fans that still read us in the off-season, we predicted that with Minnesota Lynx lead scorer Seimone Augustus out for the season with a torn ACL, Candice Wiggins would have to take on the scoring slack, and she did. She scored 25 points to lead her team over the NY Liberty and snap a mini two-game losing streak.

In other news, Rutgers star Epiphanny Prince is skipping her senior season to play professionally in Europe. Say what!!

Yes, yes, we know men have been leaving college early to go pro (And therefore get paid to play) for decades. But we hate the thought of women doing this. So does the WNBA. They have set up tight rules to discourage this. Quoting CBS Sports, “To play in the WNBA, a player must turn 22 during the year they are drafted, graduate from college or see their class matriculate during the three-month period following the draft. Or the player must be out of high school for four years.”

Okay, here’s the deal according to CBS Sports. Prince has not signed with an agent or even had a European team offer her anything. She still plans to enter the 2010 WNBA Draft.

"I just wanted to start my pro career," Prince told the Associated Press by phone. "I feel it was the right move for me and my family. I've always dreamed of playing in the WNBA."

C is totally against it. She hates the thought of women skipping college. The shelf life of a WNBA player is about 6 years, maybe less, and with fewer teams this year, it is harder to make a team. Women don’t make nearly enough money to retire on, and need a college education to fall back on. Then she reads that Prince plans to take summer school courses and hopes to graduate from Rutgers on time. Okay, there goes that argument to stay in school to graduate, if it can be done early. So it seems to come down to money.

R says that the Prince quote shows she is doing this to take care of her family, so in her view she is thinking outside of herself and trying to help others. And a Europe team allows her to do that, start making money right away instead of risking injury her senior year.

C says how much money can she make in Europe? The CBS Sports article had an interesting tidbit. If Prince had returned for her senior season, she could have been covered under a program that allows exceptional NCAA athletes to purchase insurance to protect themselves in the event of catastrophic injury or illness during their college career. Just how much for women? A women's basketball player can get up to $250,000 in coverage. Okay, but CBS Sports thinks, “It's likely Prince would earn more than that playing abroad as many American players have earned six-figure salaries in Europe.” More than $250,000? And just why is it Europe values women basketball players so much moreand pays them so mucjh more than right here in good ol’ USA?

Here’s another interesting fact. Prince isn't the first woman to leave school early to play in Europe. Schuye LaRue left Virginia after her sophomore year in 2001 to go play abroad before getting drafted in the second round by the Los Angeles Sparks in 2003.

So I guess there is hope she will come back and play for the WNBA. But if you can make more in Europe, the question is why?

Team USA

Our Stanford girls, Kayla Pederson and Jeanette Pohlen both got picked for the USA National Basketball Team that will play in the 2009 World University Games. This is Kayla’s third time on the team, but the first for Pohlen, who stepped up her game this year by playing in the point position for Stanford and staying in tip-top shape.

It actually would have been a trio of Stanford players on the team, but Jayne Appel, a sure lock-in, had to withdraw due to KNEE SURGEY. Again. Jayne, we are worried about you.

Kayla and Jeanette will be in training camp until June 25th, and then go to Belgrade, Serbia, to play in the Games July 1-11. Hope their shots are up to date! And darn, again, that means we won’t be able to see them when we drop in on Tara VanDerVeer’s summer camp this week!

Azzi all the Way, Baby!!

You Didn’t think we would let Jennifer Azzi’s induction into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in June go by unnoticed did ya?

It wasn’t just what she did; she was the first in so many ways for Stanford. Jennifer brought Stanford's first national championship home in 1990, with a win over Auburn on Tennessee’s floor! The Cardinal went 31-1 that year and she was the Finals MVP. She became the first Cardinal women's basketball player to earn the Wade Trophy, the James Naismith Player of the Year award, and the Honda-Broderick National Player of the Year and was Stanford's first WBCA/Kodak All-American. She earned the three national player of the year awards as a senior in 1989-90, while twice being named to the WBCA/Kodak All-America First Team (1989 and '90). And oh, she won a gold medal in 1996. Her national team went 60-0 that year. Her coach? Tara VanDerVeer. After that, she was a founding member of the ABL for two seasons before it folded, and then went on to play 5 seasons with the WNBA, plus overseas.

And she grew up in Tennessee, yet chose Stanford. She might have been regretting that choice her freshmen year when Stanford was 14-14. She and her teammates went around campus posting flyers to get fans to come to see them in Maples. (I know, I can’t believe it either.)

Azzi, ever the workaholic, would ask her coach to come rebound for her on Sunday mornings. Jennifer talks about how Tara VanDerVeer asked her to have patience and see her vision that freshmen year. "It was a moment in the gym, just the two of us,'' Azzi recalled, "and she said I know this is really hard for you. You're from Tennessee. You're used to winning. But I want you to see this vision. I want you to see my vision. Picture this place sold out, full of fans. We're going to do everything we can do as a staff ... but I need you as the leader to see this vision. I want you to see us winning a national championship by your senior year."

Give me goose bumps! Wonder if Tara would like to predict the stick market, too?
During her induction, Jennifer was characteristically humble. It's not just about me, it's about all the coaches and teammates and players and everybody that has been involved in my career," Azzi said of being inducted. "That's what I've loved about the game my whole life, that it brings people together."

So glad you went to Stanford, Jennifer, not Tennessee.

Mother of a Day

Still marking time until the fall, and women’s college basketball starts (oh my gosh, two blogs in one week in the off-season, what is the world coming to?). Yes, C and R know there is the WNBA, and believe you me, we are big supporters, but it is not the same as our beloved Standard team. Probably the biggest impetus to us being bigger WNBA fans is the fact we don’t have a local team here in the Bay Area. C and R have to go all the way to Sacramento, and then they won’t let you take in back packs, and C has to get in an argument with the ushers, and boy does C run into a lot of people with bad tempers, or so it seems, but I digress.

Anyhoo, C and R opened the paper the other day and nearly fainted to see an article by Michelle Smith. She used to write about the Bay Area women’s teams for the San Francisco Chronicle until they booted her in a cost cutting measure. Glad to see she is still writing. Maybe they pay her by article now. She probably got a whole 12 cents (and where is the “cent” sign on my keyboard? Geez, I am in a mood). As I was saying, she wrote an article saying that the WNBA has trimmed its roster from 13 spots to 11, and with the Houston Comets folding, it is even harder to get on a team (you were wondering how I as going to tie it back in to the WNBA, didn’t you?). C and R were totally bummed our beloved Jillian Harmon of Stanford fame, didn’t get on a team. Michele Smith also noted that the WNBA training camps will start two weeks late to give all the WNBA players who play overseas (read: all of them) a chance to come back from their second teams. They make more money there. Now, why is that? Turkey has a women’s team, and they don’t strike C and R as a hotbed of women’s sports, if you know what we mean.

Speaking of playing overseas, C and R were just a little bit proud to see all these overseas championships this year won by former Stanford players. Candice Wiggins’ team, Ros Casares of Valencia, won its third straight Spanish League title. Cissy Pierce’s team, Rhein-Main Baskets, won the Southern Germany League championship. Kristen Newlin’s Turkish Team, Fenerbahce won the Turkish Women's Basketball League championship, and Kristen's teammate is Nicole Powell. Must be something in the water out west. And that is just the teams we know about (or read about in the Stanford Fast Break Club.) So, with May being Mother’s day and all, C and R saw Pretty Tough TV had a video from ESPN of Lisa Leslie talking about Mother’s Day. She says she is giving up her basketball career to concentrate on motherhood, saying she has accomplished all she could in basketball (C and R do like her. A lot!). She was very well spoken and made some interesting comments about women someday playing in the NBA.

And then we saw this interview with Candace Parker being pregnant. All so touching, as C being a mother always loves the mother angle. Oh, oh, we just found out Candace had a baby girl! Congratulations, and I wonder if she can dunk yet?

AND….Since our blog has joined Women Talk Sports Network, C and R have been reading some really fascinating and interesting blogs about women in sports. We saw this post from Sports, Media & Society, about the Lisa Leslie Mother’s Day interview. It is a brief post, so we are ripping it off here:

While the news peg for the story -- Mother's Day -- may have driven the focus, the problem with these kinds of features is that they ultimately weaken the image of female athletes in the sports context because these stories are often done to the exclusion of regular coverage of women's sports. We see far too many stories with this kind of angle -- female athlete outside sports. (Oftentimes, it's in a mode that presents athletes in sexualized images.) Although many female athletes are eager to be cast outside their athletic achievements, the more often they're shown off the court, the less credible they're deemed on it -- any day of the year.
So I call up R and read her the quote and ask…

C: Well, what do you think of that?

R: Excellent.

C: No! I mean, yes, it is excellent, well written and all, but I am bothered by “to the exclusion of” quote. This originally aired on ESPN. They have been pretty good to women’s sports. They show highlights of the WNBA, they dedicate a lot of time to Women’s March Madness Basketball, with shows, pre- and post-coverage and show the games.

R: Look at it this way, if a sports show like ESPN only allowed five minutes of coverage on women’s sports, would you want it to show women in their athletic greatness, or show them around motherhood.

C: *Sigh* Athletic greatness. But it is Mother’s Day.

R: But I do see your point, and if it were Father’s Day I am sure they would show some male athlete with his kids, doing the Dad thing.

C: Yes, exactly. Let’s not deny that athletes can be mothers and fathers.

R: Only if it is enhancing. My main point is that there in generally so little coverage of women’s sports that it feels like when they are focus on something other than the sport, the sport itself gets shortchanged because there is just so little coverage.

C: Whoa, good point.

R: And, yes, hat’s off to ESPN for their to fantastic coverage on March Madness this year. I feel coverage of women’s sports is going up.

C: Going up?! What about the San Francisco Chronicle cutting the one women reporter that covered women’s’ Bay Area basketball.

R: So now a man will cover it.

C: Oh no, no, no. The Chron will just cut and paste the AP wire story that someone else wrote. Then they won’t have to pay any report's salary, man or wo-man, or any reporter's expense account too, and we won’t get personalized coverage, and insiders views from someone who actually goes to all the women’s games.

R: What a shame. Chronicle, if you are listening, shame on you for abandoning women’s college basketball!

C: That’s tellin’ ‘em! More coverage for women’s sports! And not just on Mother's Day!

Olympic Trails and Tribulations

R went out last night and our number one (and only) fan told her we are boring (in so many words). I agree, we are boring; we are sooooooo missing women’s college basketball. Someone told me the big men are playing (NBA playoffs) and it got exciting, but I just can’t get into it, especially when the biggest news is someone broke his foot (well, Yao Ming), and apparently his team didn’t need him anyway, as they beat the LA Fakers, I mean Lakers, without him…yawn….

Oh, here is some women’s college basketball news…..and it is even about Stanford (surprise, surprise).

Our two freshmen, our best biggest and tallest and best-est leaper (is best-est a word?), got invited to try out for the USA basketball Junior National Team, otherwise known as the U19 Team. We are, of course, talking about Sarah Boothe (Booooo-the) and Necka Ogwumike. They go mid-May to Colorado Springs. But don’t worry that our freshmen will be homesick and not be able to make friends with the rest of the girls, they will be surrounded by the familiar faces of Jayne Appel, Kayla Pederson, and Jeannette Pohlen! (Man, that one summer of working out with that track coach in LA and dropping some lbs, all the things Tara told her to do, has changed Pohlen’s life). That trio will be at the trials for the USA Basketball World University Games Team at the same time.