BY CARRIE LYELL
SPORTING SHE ROES
RON HOSKINS/NBAE VIA GETTY IMAGES (COPYRIGHT 2016 NBAE)
The year is 1997, and on a cloudy June evening the New York Liberty and the Los Angeles Sparks are anxiously preparing to tip off inside the Great Western Forum in Inglewood, Calif., in the first-ever game of the WNBA.
“We were nervous as hell”, says Teresa “T-Spoon” Weatherspoon, who was on the court as a player that night and is now the Liberty’s director of Player Development.
Despite being hobbled with a knee injury, Teresa is reminiscing about that first game all those years ago as she helps me work on my jump shot. “Keep that elbow in. That’s it…You got it!” she says with a big grin. She’s so encouraging that I start to think I could actually make it as a basketball player. When the conversation swings back to that first game at the Forum, I ask her, “Did you win?” She flashes me another smile. “We went in that building and got ‘em.”
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About Curve
This issue, we chose basketball champion Sue Bird of the
WNBA’s Seattle Storm as our cover girl. This newly out, four-time
Olympic gold medal winner is a lesson in strength, persistence,
and humility. I hope you enjoy Lucy J. Madison’s excellent interview
on page 62. And if Sue Bird isn’t enough to inspire you to support
your favorite team or athlete, be sure to go see Battle of the Sexes,
starring Emma Stone, when it is released nationally on September
22. Battle of the Sexes is about the famous tennis match between
Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. King and Riggs played in the
Houston Astrodome, and the match was nationally televised in
1973, long before ESPN and the Tennis Channel