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ERIC WALKER/Ledger & Times
WNBA star player Sheryl Swoopes speaks to a large gathering of fans and athletes at the Curris Center last night. |
Hoops legend stresses diversity, leadership
By ERIC WALKER
Editor
Numerous professional athletes tell their life stories about obstacles they encountered all the way to reaching their sports dreams. Sheryl Swoopes' story is no different.
Last night at Murray State University's Curris Center in front of a large gathering - mainly of young, female athletes - the WNBA all-star and Olympic gold medal winner recalled those times and stressed the importance of dedication, determination and drive that helped her succeed.
Along with those three keys, Swoopes added another - diversity, saying that no matter who you are, there is a place in the world for you.
Swoopes stressed that part most of all. Despite the many female basketball greats before her, such as Ann Meyers and Nancy Lieberman, Swoopes was the focal point in 1997 with the start of the Women's National Basketball Association, having come off a stellar, championship-winning college career at Texas Tech and helping the United States win gold in women's basketball in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
After graduating from Texas Tech, she joined the Houston Comets in the WNBA's inaugural season and after giving birth to a son that same year, finished with the Comets and led them to the national championship and followed that up with three more titles before joining the Seattle Storm team earlier this year. Swoopes has garnered numerous awards and accolades during her college and professional career, including MVP titles in 2000, 2002 and 2005, three Olympic gold medals for 1996, 2000 and 2004, and stints with international teams.
She was dubbed the “female Michael Jordan” and mirrored Jordan's off-the-court marketing fame by being the first women's basketball player to have a Nike shoe named after her.
But along with her hoops credentials, she is also a single mother, a published author and an openly gay professional athlete.
Swoopes noted the possibility that in this political season, the nation's leadership will become more diverse with either the first African-American president or first female vice-president.
“We've come a long way in the last 50 years,” she said, adding that colleges and universities like Murray State are foundations for introducing diversity but that leadership is critical to diversity.
To make her case, she emphasized three characters from “The Wizard of Oz” and their qualities. The first is the Tin Man, who needed a heart. Swoopes said leaders have to care and empathize with those different. Of the Cowardly Lion (who needed courage), a leader must fight and struggle for a cause. And for the Scarecrow (who needed a brain), a leader needs intelligence.
“We need leaders with heart, courage and brains to make a difference,” Swoopes said. “Without diversity, there cannot be freedom. And without freedom, there cannot be America.”
During a question-and-answer period after her talk, Swoopes was asked how she felt about the reference to her being the female Jordan. She said it was an honor and told a humorous tale of her first meeting with Jordan at one of his basketball camps.
Swoopes said while at Texas Tech she was invited to participate and that day put on her makeup and did her hair to “look nice” for Jordan. During camp when he took the court, he pointed her out and challenged her to a one-on-one game.
“It was going back-and-forth,” she recalled and the campers called for Jordan to dunk the ball.
“I said ‘Michael, just don't dunk on me,'” she said. But he made the attempt.
“You could tell, ‘cause his tongue was hanging out,” Swoopes said to laughter, in reference to Jordan's infamous “Air Jordan” antics and pose. But in an effort to keep him from dunking, she said she grabbed him and half of her makeup rubbed off on the back of his white, North Carolina T-shirt.
That shirt, she said, was then presented as a gift, has never been washed and is framed in her trophy room.
Swoopes was also asked about who she draws inspiration (her mother and Oprah Winfrey), should young athletes focus on professional sports as their goal (no-education first), and about newcomer WNBA phenom Candace Parker, who played her collegiate basketball at the University of Tennessee.
Swoopes said Parker is the “real deal.” Asked if the 6-foot-4 Parker, who has recorded numerous dunks in college and her first season in the WNBA, would be able to dunk on her, the answer was simple.
“No.”
Story created Oct 24, 2008 - 12:17:25 EDT.
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