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L
esbians can have such a complicated
response to women’s basketball. Is it
about guessing— or hoping— which
players are possibly dykes? Is it about
sitting in the stands scanning the
crowd with your binoculars, pretending that you
are watching the game when in fact you’re
checking out cuties across the way? Or is it
about seeing strong, powerful women play excel
lent basketball, unfettered by sexual stereotypes?
Clearly, whatever the reason, women’s
roundball is a big draw for lesbians eager to
indulge their senses in the sweaty experience.
And that’s exactly what many will do come
Nov. 8, the date of the home-game opener for
the Portland Power, the women’s professional
basketball team that is part of the American
Basketball League. During the 1997-98 season,
the Power was the ABL’s Western Conference
champion.
Not only does Nov. 8 mark opening night for
the Power, it is also Basic Rights Oregon Night.
The Portland-based BRO is a statewide
group dedicated to fighting for queer civil rights.
It will have a booth set up at Memorial Colise
um during the game.
The Power is one of the mast recent Oregon
employers to sign onto BR O ’s Fair Workplace
Project, which asks employers to adopt or
amend their personnel policies to state that dis
crimination based on sexual orientation will be
prohibited in the workplace.
The Power has also given the group more
than 25,000 “A BL bucks,” which BRO has dis
tributed in mass mailings. If you buy your Power
ticket with an A BL buck, you will save $1 on
your ticket purchase price and the A BL will
make a $ 1 contribution to BRO.
Though BRO is encouraging people to use
these bucks at the opening game, they can be
used for any home game during the season.
According to Jean Harris, BR O ’s executive
director, the partnership with the Power began
last year when the Power donated four box seats
to BRO.
“Let whoever wants to use them, use them.
We’re trying to reach out to all sorts of people,”
is what Harris remembers Power personnel say
ing.
At the time, Harris felt the need to provide
further information about her organization. “I
said, ‘You know we’re the ones that fight all the
anti-gay measures? You know we’re identified
with fighting the right wing?’ They said, ‘Yes,
and we’re very supportive of that.’ ”
This year, the Power approached BRO staff
and asked them if they would like their group to
be the nonprofit headlined at the home opener,
Harris gladly agreed.
A big Power fan herself, Harris says of the
partnership: “We’re both struggling.... Everyone
in Oregon should support both of these things.”
P umped on the P ower
Portland's women's professional basketball team gears up for its third season
by L is B accigalu p p i
D
uring a Power practice,
C oach Lin Dunn is
putting the players through a
series of drills, some of which
they are forced to repeat until
they get it right.
“Slow down! W hat’s your
hurry?” Dunn yells. “Slow
down, what’s your hurry! Slow
dow n...”
Finally, exasperated, she
yells, “You’re like a bunch of
chickens with your heads cut
off.. .getting in line for Thanks
giving.”
Throughout the drill, veter
an player Katy Steding defends
Danielle McCulley, a 6-foot-3-
inch forward and the first-
round draff pick in the A BL
this year.
They’re really going at one
another— waving arms, grab
bing and shoving.
In between drills, while
Dunn is yelling, M cCulley
stands behind Steding, who has
gotten clunked with one of
The Power at practice
Dunn’s “Goddangit, why did
you do that?” questions. McCulley gently
“I think we’ve got a lot of chemistry on the
team,” she says. “I think you’re going to see a big
straightens Steding’s jersey.
Eventually the players get it right.
difference.”
This team is not the same team from last
“ '% J' ou saw us making a bunch of mistakes out
year. In addition to Smith and McCulley, there
there,” Rhonda Smith tells me after prac-
are three other new players, all guards: Averill
Roberts, Debra Williams and Sonja Henning.
tice.
Smith, a 6-foot-2-inch forward, played for The Power is also fortunate to have as a practice
player Shelley Sheetz, who was a point guard
Seattle her first two years in the ABL. She was
last year for Colorado.
traded to Long Beach last year before the draft,
and ended up in Portland after Long Beach dis
Returning players are last season’s league
banded.
MVP Natalie Williams, DeLisha Milton, Sted-
ing, Sylvia Crawley and Elaine Powell. Gone
Dunn rides the players about their mistakes,
from the Power are Lisa Harrison, Falisha
but, says Smith, “When you do make mistakes,
Wright, Molly Goodenbour, Sheila Frost, Lati-
it’s OK. She gives you alternatives.”
Smith didn’t see a lot of playing time in Seat cia Morris and Jennifer Jacoby.
There will also be some changes in the A BL
tle, though her stats are impressive. About her
play last season, Smith says, “After awhile my designed to accommodate— and encourage—
better television coverage of the games. Half
confidence was so gone, I wasn’t really playing
time will be 12 minutes, down from 15 last year,
well anyway.”
Now, she says, she’s playing with more confi and there are new rules that should result in
dence. She adds: “Coach Dunn gives us a lot of fewer free throws.
The ABL has a new contract with Fox
freedom. I love the way she handles the team. It
Sports in which there are incentives for Fox to
makes me excited to be out there.”
carry the games live, rather than on tape delay.
Smith is also excited about the team as a
This should be an improvement over last year,
whole.
when the network sometimes cut segments from
the middle of games.
There will be 16 games on Fox, and Black
Entertainment Television will no longer carry
ABL games. C B S, meanwhile, has promised to
televise two games during the ABL finals, and
the Power is working with local television sta
tions to broadcast home games.
“We’re hoping to have as many as six or
eight home games on local TV this year,” says
Power spokesman Nelson Holmberg.
S
ome lesbians perceive the ABL’s focus on
players with husbands— and television’s
attempts to avoid obvious lesbians when scan
ning the crowd at games— to be homophobic.
Harris says she thinks it’s different when it
comes to the Power. She points to its continu
ing, unsolicited support of BRO.
“In the sports world,” Harris says, “homo
phobia is really hard.... If you’re raised in the
women’s sports world, you don’t talk about your
sexual orientation. It’s just the way the sports
world is. But you know there are more lesbians
involved in sports than Martina. Lesbians are
alive and well, inside the Power and out.”
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