love and basketball

In 2000, the film Love and Basketball came out.

Monica and Quincy are two childhood friends who both aspire to be professional basketball players. With basketball as the backdrop, Love & Basketball is a love story that celebrates a woman prioritizing her own needs ahead of her boyfriend’s, unwilling to sacrifice her basketball ambitions for love. Love. Of. Basketball.

I played intramural basketball in college. The woman’s game at the time was played half-court. Guards brought the ball up to mid-court and then passed to the forwards. I was a guard.

Following college, I had little interest in the game. It was a men’s game and frankly I found basketball itself to be boring.

Until 1996. That’s the year the WNBA was founded. The Women’s National Basketball Association. I admit the news of the WNBA sparked little interest in me at first. It was basketball after all.

Eight teams made up the league in its inaugural year of play. Houston, where I lived at the time, had a team. The Comets. League play began in 1997. The Comets won the championship the first year of play. And the second, third, and fourth years as well,

At that time I was the Interim Director of a medical research foundation located in the Texas Medical Center. During a meeting someone offered two free tickets to a Comets game. I surprised myself when I declared I’d like to have the tickets! So my best friend and I went to the game, This was during the second season of league play, and we found ourselves swept up by the speed of play and the crowd’s enthusiasm.

The rest is history.

My friend and I loved the games. We loved the team. The idea of a women’s sports league we could – and wanted – to watch, was unexpected. We bought season tickets and watched women play a thrilling game from then on. We learned what a double-double was right after a player had completed one. We were all in.

On occasion I would fly to Dallas to gather up my first granddaughter, just to fly back to Houston for a game. No one had to wonder what team was our team.

When she was in high school I’d fly her to Knoxville, Tennessee to watch the Lady Vols play. I had moved to the Georgia mountains by then and my drive to Knoxville was just a couple of hours and beautiful roads.

A few years later she went off to college, where there was a convergence I would never have imagined. The new women’s basketball coach at the University of South Carolina was recruiting interest in the student population for the upcoming season. My granddaughter told the coach about how much her Nana loved women’s basketball. For the next five years I would drive the three hours to USC to watch the women play with my granddaughter.

As I write this, that coach, Dawn Staley, has won two NCAA championships and this season the Gamecocks are number one in the nation. And… she played for the Comets back in the day.

My other granddaughter is also all in for the women’s game. She grew up with a league expansion team in Seattle, the Seattle Storm. I’ve enjoyed many games with her, and her family. The team has had great success and it’s so much fun to watch!

Her recent high school graduation festivities included a Storm game, of course.

All this background for a game I love and have loved with my best friend, with my family, and most especially my granddaughters.

Today I’m on my way to Houston to attend a game at Rice University this weekend. The Rice Owls women’s basketball team plays the Charlotte 49ers. Since this is my granddaughter’s freshman year, we are just getting started. I look forward to four years of Rice Owls women’s basketball.

Traveling mercies.

P.S. I’ve been hanging out in the Delta Club at Hartsfield-Jackson airport waiting for my flight. I looked up a few minutes ago. What I saw amazed me. A woman’s basketball team on the screen behind the bar.

No words necessary. However, I have a huge smile on my face.