Alyssa Sutherland
Alyssa Sutherland of Unity Wildcats Elite.
NORFOLK, Va. - After nearly 20 years of covering big-money, mostly male professional and college sports, I have, quite honestly, retreated as far from that world as possible. And I have come to regard my new world, girl's basketball, as the last bastion of innocence in sports. Its sensibilities - its connectiveness and sense of community, and emphasis on fairness, justice and nurturing - have spoken to me like no other sport has.
Over the years, first as a coach and parent, then as a journalist who spends equal time as promoter and protector, the utter conviction of girl's basketball as sugar and spice and everything nice has eroded until, well, Saturday, when it felt to me that my experience had reached a nadir and, for the first time, I wanted to quit fighting the fight and walk away. Because days like this day do not feel so innocent. Because days like this day are not what I signed up for when I walked away from a solid career and put tens of thousands of dollars of my own money on the line to build a place girl's hoopers all over the country could call their own.
Shivonne Gallahger of Captial Region tries
to split her Pittsburgh Heat defenders at
Blue Chip's Preseason Challenge.
Yes, I've mentioned my own investment of money, time and sweat a time or two, just as I have mentioned Chris Hansen's cashing in every holiday and vacation hour for a couple years in the effort to build HoopGurlz. I mention these because I believe they only entitle me only the right to say that we did it for the kids and the sport. We, after all, put our money where our hearts were.
We hear that a lot, by the way. That it's all "for the kids." But, you tell me after reading the account I'm about to offer, how much of what happened to me on Saturday did anything "for the kids."
My day began in Raleigh, N.C., where I'd covered the opening day of the Deep South Classic, along with Rebecca Gray, the North Carolina freshman turned HoopGurlz columnist. At the Deep South, in spite of past differences, Michael T. White and Larry McKay treated Rebecca and me with the utmost respect, the event ran like clockwork, and the girls played hard and well.
Three hours along beautiful, tree-lined rolling hills of North Carolina and Virginia took me to Blue Chip Basketball's Preseason Challenge at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va. There, I lunched and planned with our writer, Mindi Rice, whom I've known since she was a high-school senior. Shortly after, I plunked myself along a somewhat awkwardly configured confluence of three courts. I prefer to shoot under the basket, but that would not have afforded the officials room to adequately position themselves. I have a good sense of this because I have many good friends who are officials, and I have covered basketball events all over the country.
I must admit, I have come to love watching a basketball game through the lens of my cameras, and capturing the grace, beauty and grit of the players who play it. My bliss was shattered by a voice. "You can't be there," said a woman with an NCAA logo on her jacket, whom I recognized as one of the omnipresent referee observers. I asked why and was told, in a tone I felt was demeaning to me, that I was endangering myself, the officials and the player. I asked where I might better locate myself. She suggested "upstairs," which I rejected because the position would compromise my ability to record decent photographs. At an impasse, she said, "You just can't be here."
Kiley Evans of the Unity Wildcats tests
the LI Lightning defense at Blue Chip's
Preseason Challenge.
So I moved, finding what I consider the safest place on the court - several feet behind the baseline, against a wall and beyond the 3-point arc, where no official needs to go and players rarely, if ever, tumble. Again, with my eye to the viewfinder, I heard another voice, "What are you doing here?" The question was so jarring to me that I replied, awkwardly, "Huh?" The woman, who was wearing an Atlantic-10 shirt and apparently has something to do with that conference's officials, repeated the question a couple more times. To which I replied, "taking pictures." She said I was violating some kind of NCAA guidelines by sitting where I was (there are guidelines about where a photographer sits during an evaluation tournament?), asked if I were a parent, claimed that she had spoken to the tournament director about me (Bill McDonough (she hadn't)) and, when I said I went through the proper channels to get credentials and showed her my wristband, which only was distributed to college coaches, she said, "That's just a wristband." In other words, she lit into me.
At some point I asked her why she was taking the tone she did, and she said, "I'm not taking any tone." But two players who were speaking to me at the time essentially fled the area when she started making a scene, and I pointed that out.
When I also asked her where else I could position myself, she motioned to the area the woman in the NCAA jacket had just told me to vacate. When I pointed that out, the Atlantic-10 lady said I'd been shooed from an area that I actually never used. At that point, I told her I would just leave the tournament. She followed me to my camera bags to continue the discussion. I repeated that I was leaving and the discussion was over. After consulting with Mindi, I reaffirmed that decision and informed McDonough that, at this point in my life, I want my actions to mean something. So if I left, he would not be pleased and, knowing him, he'd pursue some kind of remedy. If I stayed, I believed nothing would change. I'm not sure McDonough understood my logic, and I truly feel for him and the players and teams at the Blue Chip event who were denied the opportunity of being photographed. Mindi will, however, continue to provide coverage, and I hope we can make it up to McDonough, who runs quality events, as well as those who participate in them.
About 90 minutes later, I was down the road in Hampton, Va., for Boo Williams' Battle of the Best. I called ahead to Clay Kallam, our writer there, to let him know I was on the way and to inquire about credentials. As is our custom, we call and write tournament directors in advance to request credentials and packets. For obvious reasons, we never commit to covering an event until we square things with the director. However, every time I've attended this tournament, no one on the tournament staff has any idea who I am or that I had been cleared to cover the event. This year was no different - for me or Clay. I would have to wait until Williams was finished coaching his game.
I rushed into the facility to photograph the day's last round of championship-bracket games. Again, I heard a voice: "You need to get up." Again, it was disconcerting and I didn't understand. "I'm a police officer and you need to get up," the woman repeated. Without repeating a lot of she-said, he-said, I ended up being escorted to the entrance, where my ESPN employee badge or the dozens of people who came to say hello were not proof enough of who I was, Nike girl's grassroots head Mary Thompson was called for verification. By the time it all played out, the championship-round games had ended, and I received a credential but no packet.
Players from Essence and DFW Elite at
Battle of the Best cannot be identified
without a college packet.
The reason I keep mentioning packets is that one of the benefits (for the players, I might add) of our being with ESPN is that we will have a player page created for every player appearing in the college packet of any event we cover. I think - and have been told - that our player pages can be a powerful marketing tool for individuals. Not to mention that their creation is free. I don't understand any director's reluctance to contribute to this effort, just as I don't understand the hoops we sometimes have to jump through to cover an event since, obviously, our presence not only promotes players, it promotes the event itself.
Frankly, we could accomplish our mission by attending only non-sanctioned tournaments and high-school events, but the sanctioned tournaments seem important to people and are a way to connect with the girl's basketball community, so in an act that sometimes feels like self-flaggellation, we continue our efforts to cover them.
Adding one final insult to a Saturday from hell, I ran into a player whom I've known for a while but will not name because I don't think it necessary to embarrass her. However, I will say that her "coach," Blue Star's Mike Flynn grabbed her away and told me I'd need his permission to speak to any of his players. This is the same Mike Flynn who, when asked about complaints from Nike-sponsored programs that he was poaching their players, replied in an email, "Really - I didn't know that any travel team 'owned' any player, ever." I don't mind that I keep having run-ins with people I believe are poisoning the sport; what I do resent is the awkwardness introduced into the simple act of checking in with someone I've known for years. What kind of world has this become?
Why should anyone care that I had such a bad day? For starters, I left both events to make a point and the result is that, except for the photos appearing with this story, we will not be offering coverage of Saturday's developments from either tournament. If that upsets you, I don't blame you. In fact, I hope you do something about it. There are major changes afoot in the recruiting process. I understand, because players, parents, club and college coaches alike have told us so, that HoopGurlz can and does play a role in the process. It is a role we take seriously and responsibly. We've never asked for favors, only that we be allowed to do our thing. Obviously, because we're backed by ESPN and Disney, we're not going away. Neither is our commitment.
And that commitment is ultimately why I will be back at the Battle of the Best, bright and early on Sunday. I came close to packing up and flying home. Those close to me understood, even encouraged such a course of action. However, I will heed the implied promise we've made to the girl's basketball players thoughout this country, but will do so bearing the scar of Saturday, a day when it became more clear that the game I love is deteriorating further into an ego-fueled power and money grab, a day that disappointedly edged the girls closer to the boy's game with which I'd been associated for some time in a previous life. A day, sadly, when the innocence with which I long associated girl's basketball faded like the paint on an aging, once-cherished vehicle. I will return wounded, and wondering if that vehicle can be salvaged.
