You Let Some Girl Beat You? (26 page)

Though they didn't show Don, the comments from the other characters in the movie had been enough to give the kids a good idea of what their Dad was like as a younger man. There were so many things even I learned about Don from that film. When I think about it now, in some ways it was probably good that D.J. was at prep school instead of being with us that night. If Darren had faint memories of his father, and Drew had none, their older brother was living with a ghost.

D.J. carried his father's name, his eyes, and so much of Don's personality. When he'd been younger, many adults would come up to him and say, “Are you going to grow up to become a baseball player like your dad?” They'd ask both the boys, and I know it bothered them, just like it bothered Drew when someone would ask if she wanted to become a basketball player like her mom.

But everything seemed to resonate just a little bit more with D.J., and I think it's because he remembered his father and how much it had hurt those first several years after his death.

Afterward, Izzy and some of the other Dodgers told the kids stories about Don back in the day. The movie had brought us a little closer to the man we all loved. But for children, a movie reel is a lousy stand-in for the real thing. I thought back on that night now and worried about whether or not my taking the GM position for the Mercury would be the right thing.

We had a family discussion, and they thought it was a good idea. They told me they were aware of how many opportunities I'd turned down up to that point. We all decided that Darren and Drew would stay in Huntington Beach rather than come with me to Phoenix. This would allow them to finish school with the same friends and teachers and be near the ocean.

Drew was playing soccer and running track, and Darren was playing soccer and running track as well. Their lives were in Huntington Beach. I had the help of Mom, Patty, and Frannie, and other family members who took turns staying at the house while I was away. And Phoenix was just a short plane ride away. My sister, Cathy, was already living there, so I knew I'd have family nearby. I looked at each of my kids head on, trying to read their faces, hoping that they really meant what they were saying, wondering if it might finally be all right.

“If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.”
~ Margaret Thatcher

“This is Ann Meyers, the new GM of the Mercury.” Robert introduced me to everyone in the front office. We shook hands, exchanged pleasantries, and then Robert cleared his throat. “Oh, yeah, and she's also going to be Vice President of the Suns.” When I heard that I gasped right along with everybody else. We had never discussed the VP position or my responsibilities. I couldn't have predicted in a million years that he was going to spring such a totally thrilling, surprising prospect on me. The title alone would open up doors.

The next thing I knew, I was out scouting for the Suns, and I loved it. I also scouted for the Mercury. The Suns continued to dominate, and the Mercury finally started to heat up.

They'd always had the talent, the nucleus of a winning team. Diana Taurasi, Cappi Pondexter, and Penny Taylor were three phenomenal players. They were missing the fourth leg. I knew their coach, Paul Westhead, because I'd broadcast some of his games when he was coaching at Loyola, and he'd also been head coach for the Lakers during the 1980 Championship with Magic and Kareem, and I knew the assistant coach, Corey Gains, because he'd played for Coach Westhead.

But it was in the front office that Jay Parry, COO/President, and Amber Cox, the Marketing Director, and I clicked. The three of us had an instant chemistry, which made each of us better.

Through a bizarre bit of luck, when Jay and I went back to New York for the WNBA meetings, they also had the lottery for the #1 pick. We could hear the ping pong balls popping inside the machine. The Mercury had the worst odds, so everyone was stunned when the ball popped up and we got the first pick overall.

When it was time for the draft, I made a tough decision, but one I felt was necessary. After discussing it with Coach Westhead, we traded the first pick to Minnesota for Tangela Smith. No one had ever traded away the number one overall pick before, not in the NBA. And there were a lot of people who believed I'd made a big mistake, including Jay and Amber. But I felt that going with a seasoned pro like Tangela was a smart move. She was the missing piece of the puzzle. I had broadcast Tangela's games when she was in college, and then in Sacramento, and Charlotte when she went pro. I knew she could play, and more than that, Coach and I knew she'd fit into the system he ran. The chemistry among the teammates could now work to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Papa used to say, “It's amazing what you can accomplish when nobody cares who gets the credit.” When you think of competitive athletes, altruism seldom comes to mind. But I knew that to have a winning team, they had to play for the
team
, not themselves.

All for one and one for all had been my motto as a team member, but I had refrained from saying “we” as a broadcaster. In part, it was an attempt to remain impartial. Even when broadcasting the UCLA games, I tried not to say “we.” But now, as a representative of the Suns and the Mercury “we” was all I said. “Group think” would also be accompanied by a lot more orange and purple clothing in my closet. It was such a great organization with so many wonderful people, and they made it easy. Jerry Colangelo had built it from scratch and Sarver had come in with so much passion. Mike D'Antoni, Rick Welts, Alvin Gentry, and Steve Kerr on the NBA side were behind me a hundred percent.

But behind the decision to trade our #1 pick or not, even the fans could see that the players began communicating better on the court and making the extra unselfish passes necessary to build a championship team without losing the individual heart and drive it took to be great. They chalked up their first-ever 23-win season, the first regular-season Western Conference Championship. At the same time, the kids and I flew to Madrid, where Dean Smith, Bill Russell, and I would become the first Americans to be inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame. It was an enormous honor, but the whole time I hated the thought of missing a play-off game. We flew back to Phoenix in time for game 4 in which a last-minute shot by Cappie Pondexter forced a decisive Game 5. And though on the road, in 2007, at long last, the Mercury clinched their very first WNBA Championship, beating out the favored and more playoff-experienced Detroit Shock. Detroit's coach, Bill Laimbeer, tipped his hat. We had beat him, and on his home turf. It was another WNBA first.

If I'd been juggling before, now I felt like I was juggling on a unicycle. But at least I was on a peak.

The following June, I found myself in the East Garden of the White House. President George W. Bush had invited the Mercury in celebration of the previous year's championship. I had met him several times in the 80s when he was part owner of the Texas Rangers. They'd come into Chicago to play the White Sox and he'd met with Don.

I brought D.J. with me. He was attending Arizona State and interning for the Mercury and the Suns. The President had asked him to stand during his presentation—he wanted to see if D. J. resembled Don as much as he'd heard. “He does kinda look like the big right hander,” he said before proceeding with his congratulation speech to the team.

Next, it was my turn. “Mr. President, we know your support for the Phoenix Mercury is genuine because of the influence of the women in your life.”

“Yes,” he said.

“All first ladies—your graceful mother, your classy wife …”

“Thank you…”

“…your very strong-willed daughters.” When I said this, everybody laughed—as I expected they would. The twins had recently been featured in the news as big-time party-girls. They were just displaying typical, (some may have said irresponsible) teenage behavior. It was harmless, unless your dad happened to be the president.

“That's why my hair is white,” he quipped, and again there was a big laugh. Up until that point, his standard response to the press' questions about his daughters had been, “That's why my
mother's hair
is white,” but he'd obviously rethought the wisdom of that, deciding to make himself the butt of the joke, instead. After all, he was playing to a primarily female crowd.

Clearly, the leader of the free world enjoyed making people laugh. I'd met his father and mother with Don when Bush, Senior was in the White House. Don had known all of the presidents from the Kennedys on up, and as an Olympian I'd met President Ford. Now, however, I was here with the Mercury, and I couldn't have been prouder. I continued my speech, and then Diana Taurasi and Cappie Pondexter, our team captains and two fellow Olympians, presented him with a Phoenix Mercury jersey and a replica of our championship banner.

The president finished and came over to say hello. When D.J. went to shake his hand, the President smiled, took D.J.'s palm, closed the fingers, and gave him a little fist bump. He was laid back and friendly, and it might have been my imagination, but it was almost as though he sensed that D.J. had had to act like a grown up for far too long, and he wanted him to relax and enjoy himself, at least for an afternoon. The three of us must have spoken for a good fifteen minutes before his security finally came up and took him away.

Afterward, D.J. and I headed back to our hotel, the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. The team had a game that night. The hotel's casino had about a half-dozen shops and boutiques, one of which was filled with celebrity memorabilia. Something of Don's was there, but that's not what caught my eye. In the window, there was a framed picture of Mother Teresa with a letter written and signed by her.

“Mom, we have to get that for Papa,” D.J. said the moment he saw it. Mother Teresa had been one of Papa's greatest inspirations.

Back in the 80s, former LSU basketball coach, Dale Brown, had arranged a meeting between Papa and Mother Teresa when she was in California, but Papa had fallen sick. Dale loved him, as so many of the coaches and players did, and he knew how much the meeting would have meant. Papa had never asked for anything. He didn't need anything. But I knew how much he regretted not being able to meet her that time. I hoped this would help. I couldn't wait to get home to give it to him. He had far more yesterdays than tomorrows, yet he lived each day as his masterpiece. It had always been his credo.

I thought about Papa's philosophy that July, as I left for the Beijing Olympics. This time I brought the kids with me. The flight was long, and when we finally arrived, the room was small. The four of us had to stay in one hotel room. I had no problem sharing a bathroom. I was used to that having grown up in a big family. But for the kids it was something new. Drew and I shared the bed, while the boys slept in a bed and a roll-away. The accommodations couldn't take the shine off our thrill to be in Beijing. The eyes of the world had turned to China, which was proving to be the new superpower while billing itself as the best of the old and the new. Beijing was every bit as metropolitan and high tech as I'd heard. I'd also heard about the choking smog, and that was no lie either.

We'd only been there a few days when Drew complained about her throat hurting. She had tonsillitis earlier and now I was afraid it might be back. She didn't want to miss any of the sightseeing, though, especially The Great Wall. She knew this might be her only opportunity to visit China, so she came out with us every day and was a great sport. But the air quality was so noxiously bad in Beijing, especially during the summer, that a year earlier there had been speculation in the U.S. press about whether or not some of the events would need to be postponed. Now factories were closed, construction slowed and it was reported that one million of the city's 3.3 million cars were banned from the roads by China's government as a precaution.

They had spent nearly 40 billion dollars to remake the capital in anticipation of being on the world stage. Image was important. The basketball games (which were very popular in China, because of Yao Ming's participation in the NBA) were indoors, so the players were more or less unaffected. But the highly anticipated track and field events took place in the Bird's Nest national stadium. You might be able to disguise the pollution for the cameras, but with over 550,000 foreign visitors and about 22,000 accredited members of the media descending upon the city, there were bound to be plenty of people who noticed athletes complaining about the air quality—athletes, and visitors recovering from tonsillitis.

Toward the end of the trip Drew was really sick. When I looked inside her mouth, her tonsils were so swollen that I couldn't see the back of her throat. We found the nearest clinic in Beijing where a doctor who spoke some English gave her an herbal remedy which, luckily, worked right away.

All in all, it was a great opportunity for the kids. The Opening Ceremonies were some of the most spectacular I'd ever seen. The U.S. Women's basketball team had an excellent showing by defeating Australia 92-65 to take the Gold, in large part thanks to a team of WNBA players twelve deep, as compared to Australia's seven WNBA players. Among the U.S. team were two of the Phoenix Mercury, Diana Taurasi and Cappie Pondexter. And three-time Olympian Dawn Staley, a point guard for the Houston Comets, was selected to carry the flag. That another woman, and basketball player no less, was selected to carry our country's flag made me proud.

Back home, the Suns were continuing to dominate. Two-time MVP, Steve Nash, could knock down shots from any point on the court, and as one of the best passers in the league, he was one of the NBA's big ticket draws. But it was the WNBA Fever - Mercury Finals that changed the way the country was coming to view the women's game. The Indiana franchise had been hemorrhaging cash so badly that there was talk that it might fold. Pacers President, Larry Bird bought $5,000 worth of tickets for the fans in support of the team, and then Steve Kerr, GM of the Suns, bought $5,000 when they were playing in Phoenix. All of the Finals were sold out.

Away games three and four of the finals had produced full houses of over 18,000, giving the Fever a much-needed financial infusion. On the Mercury team—in the bleachers during games, and in management—we all felt it was a historic series.
The New York Times
agreed. A piece appeared in early October likened the WNBA finals between Mercury and the Fever to the Lakers - Celtics rivalry of the 1980s, with Diana Taurasi in place of Magic Johnson, and Tamika Catchings instead of Larry Bird.

It had been thirty years since I'd felt like a woman without a team, since I'd spent three days playing with some of the NBA's best only to find myself, ultimately, playing with ladies who could barely pass a ball. Now women's basketball had finally arrived. I was contacted by a
Sports Illustrated
reporter asking me for my take on whether a woman might finally play in the NBA.

NBA Commissioner, David Stern, had been quoted saying that he thought it was a good possibility that we would see a woman playing in the NBA within the next ten years. That idea had been heresy in 1979. Suddenly, with the way the finals had played out, the commissioner was suggesting that it was likely. The irony, of course, was that now that women finally had a league of their own, playing on a level to par the men, they didn't need to go out for the NBA (although there were and are all sorts of issues as to the huge disparity in compensation.)

When the Mercury won the Championship again in 2009 in another exciting five game series, we were invited to the White House a second time. This time, I brought my daughter, Drew, to meet President Obama. He didn't spend nearly as long with the team as President Bush had, but I suppose the world had changed so much in that short period and he had a busy day ahead. I will say I was disappointed that he didn't spend more time with us.

After he left the podium, the president took a group shot on stage with the team. As he left the stage, Corey Gaines, now our head coach, jumped off the stage and ran up to the president, rousing security. “My mom would kill me if I didn't get a picture with you.”