Ladies first

Look to the women of UConn to see basketball's best

OK, sports fans, let's dig into the old mailbag.

First, from Snow White:

Dear George Steinbrenner,
I'm sorry, Boss, you might have requisitioned every good ballplayer -- even though the Yankees are so deep you'd lend the bullpen to Donald Rumsfeld to spearhead any future attack against in the Middle East -- but you are no longer the fairest team of all.

Next, from Anna Kournikova:

Dear Tonya Harding,
It was so nice to have you, in your own coquettish fashion, back on television, slugging the ever-stylish Paula Jones, once again attracting high ratings and the most vulgar attention to women's athletics. Unfortunately, it's my sad duty to inform you, Tonya, that you have been replaced as America's Sports Sweetheart.

And from Jim Nantz and Billy Packer:

Dear Duke, Maryland, Kansas and UCLA,
Sorry, guys, but all the good players are already in the NBA, and it's just madness for us to care about who wins your little office pool this March.

And from me to you:

Dear America,

The sweetest little secret in sports is that the best team extant -- and maybe the most dominant team ever to play basketball, and possibly the best thing that ever happened to women's sports (well, at least since Sarah Hughes) -- is the lady Huskies of Connecticut. This March, with a collection of teams so ordinary even Dick Vitale can't scream them into our consciousness, the men's NCAA tournament is the other tournament.

Now, women's basketball doesn't appeal to most fans because women don't dunk. This is a lot like disliking Broadway because it doesn't have commercials. The women's game, as played by UConn, which starts five All-Americans, is often much more entertaining than the men's hoopus isolatus. The lady Huskies have won all 35 of their games this season by an average of almost 40 points. Experts have called UConn the perfect team; opposing coaches have called it the perfect storm.

Of course, the lady Huskies have already won two national titles and have been the dominant team in women's basketball -- in women's sports -- for years. Now, it does irritate some unforgiving feminists that the coach of this distaff juggernaut is ... well, he's a he. But Geno Auriemma is no opportunist who got an old buddy athletic director to give him a girls' job because he couldn't cut it with the boys. His entire college career, since 1981, has been spent coaching women, even though Auriemma tends to be tougher and more acerbic than many men's coaches.

It was nothing unusual when Sue Bird, winner of the 2002 Naismith award for female college basketball player of the year, left practice in tears one day last month, retreating from Auriemma's withering criticism. But his players adore him, no less than young men from UCLA or North Carolina found a father figure in John Wooden or Dean Smith. The wrong sex he may be, but Auriemma gets recruits from across the country, and his teams are respected for intelligence and sportsmanship. In his 17 years a head coach at UConn, no Auriemma player who used up her basketball eligibility has failed to graduate.

Plus, gee, the lady Huskies are just fun to watch.

Oh, and here's one more letter.

From David Letterman:

Dear CBS,
Could you please put the women's NCAA Final, with the lady Huskies, in prime time on April 1st instead of the men's, so I'll have a more appealing lead-in?

Sports Illustrated senior contributing writer Frank Deford is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com and appears each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition. His new novel, The Other Adonis (Sourcebooks Landmark), is available now at bookstores everywhere.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.

 

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