The Legend of Sheryl Swoopes

Lovin the WNBA

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Bell Fuller

'THE LEGEND OF SHERYL SWOOPES'

3 MVP's, 3 DOP's, 4 Rings...need I say more- SWOOPES

    In 1993 I remember watching the Womens NCAA Tournament and anxiously watching to see who would be crowned NCAA Champions. A few of the same powerhouses of today were favored such as my Tennessee Vols and the defending National Champion Stanford Cardinal who beat my favorite point guard ever in Dawn Staley and Virginia. So I’m watching for one of these teams or perhaps Lousiana Tech while they were still rolling to emerge. UConn pre-Geno was laughable when it came to championship talk in those days.

     Well I begin to hear about some girl at Texas Tech- ‘Texas Tech??? Are they even good’? Apparently they had a good season and were a 2 seed that year as they were led by this star player. Every year there’s some team that surprises but 9 times out of 10 when the smoke clears, the usual suspects are standing victorious. So I didn’t put much stock in the Red Raiders and was still skeptical on this star player. Yet the numbers she’s piling up were so gaudy- 53 points in the conference championship game…who does that in major D-1 ball??? So I watch. This girl’s name was Swoopes, Sheryl Swoopes. I think ‘well I like her name if nothing else’ and I begin to watch highlights of her destroying teams. ‘Dang! I ain’t never heard of a female player putting up numbers like this. Well let’s see what she does when she plays tough competition.’ Sheryl Swoopes and the Red Raiders continued to win and would go on to the Final Four and play the number one seeded Vanderbilt Commodores and I was front and center at the tv ready to see what she’s got. Mind you I’d just watched Swoopes tear up Colorado in the previous game but I wrote the Buffaloes off as a fluke. NOW, we’d really see what she can do. She commenced to give Vanderbilt 31 points and 11 rebounds as Texas Tech won going away. I was blown away. ‘She is the truth!’ It was so exciting, but now could she lead her team to an actual championship? She had a fantastic game against Vandy, she probably can’t score that much against number one seeded Ohio State led by future Hall of Famer, then freshman Katie Smith. But if Swoopes can score 20, 25 then they at least have a shot to win and I’d be really convinced that she’s one of the best. SHERYL SWOOPES SCORED 47 POINTS!!!! I, along with the nation was flabbergasted and convinced and I still am, Sheryl Swoopes is a superstar! Oh, and the greatest player to ever play college or pro since the WNBA era began. 

Swoopes at Texas Tech en route to a National Championship

     A few years later the WNBA made its debut and Swoopes was supposed to make hers as well but she was pregnant and had to sit out all but the last nine games that year. Cynthia Cooper came out of nowhere, and along with number one overall collegiate pick Tina Thompson, led the Houston Comets to the championship game. Swoopes joined the team to try to help or at least not destroy the chemistry that the team had already formed. She wasn’t her Texas Tech 47 point self from her lack of time to prepare to play but she competed nonetheless. I remember watching her closely and seeing her wanting to do more but simply not having her form just yet. Meanwhile she was doing all of the other things that make her the greatest: the passing, the defense, the acumen and passion of an elite basketball player. While Coop certainly drove that team to the title, I remember a key moment in I think Game 3 of that series with the New York Liberty. It was a crucial point where the Liberty was making a run and the Comets were moving the ball around on a very important possession. Swoopes who hadn’t scored much at all receives the ball near the top of the key well behind the 3-point line. She catches it and confidently, without hesitation launches a long, high arcing 3. She was standing shot was so far out when she shot, she was definitely not the hot hand so to speak, and the possession was so crucial that I was aghast that she even took the shot but when that ball reached the rim it landed in nothing but the bottom of the net. I was blown away. I said to myself ‘Now that’s a big time player.’ Four WNBA Championships, 3 Defensive Player of the Years and 3 MVP’s later it seems that was an understatement.

     There have been so many great players to play in the WNBA that like any field it’s still reasonably debatable on who’s the best. I really believe the question comes down to basically Lauren Jackson, Cynthia Cooper, Lisa Leslie and Swoopes. That’s a great list. But none of the aforementioned three were quite as dominant as Swoopes in every phase of the game. Like Jordan and Lebron in the NBA, players who play both ends of the floor at an extremely high level have to be the first qualification. No one did it like Sheryl Swoopes. She won games on both ends of the floor. Not just by scoring a ton of points, which she did, but by locking down opposing teams premiere player and just being an overall tremendous disruption for any team’s offensive scheme. Note the Defensive Player of the Year Award THREE years. Now Tamika Catchings has proven to be the same sort of defensive presence in the league today but Catch isn’t quite the force Swoopes is at the offensive end. No one did it on both ends like she did. Lisa Leslie is close, extremely close but I think Sheryl gets her. I love LJ’s game (Lauren Jackson) but I don’t think she compares in terms of being an all around player who affects the game in so many ways. Coop gets a lot of accolades and deservedly so as being one of the greatest and some say the greatest. First of all, Coop has to be applauded as she was 34 years old when the league started and still dominated! This is in 1997. These days 34 is not the same because people are so aware of the right foods, drinking water etc not to mention the protein shakes and that whole world. So what she accomplished in those few years in the WNBA at such an older age deserves a standing ovation. 

Coop, Tina Thompson and Swoopes- 4 WNBA Titles

 But even with that said, as an all around player, Coop doesn’t quite measure up to Swoopes. And that’s no shot at Coop, I mean she’s the starting 2 guard on the 1^st Team All-Time WNBA team in my opinion but now we’re dealing with the greatest single player ever. No one measures up to Sheryl Swoopes. She just could influence the game in so many ways and could fit into your system in whatever capacity. Supporting star early on with the Comets, star with the Comets all the way to role player with the Tulsa Shock. Sheryl Swoopes is the greatest to ever do it and should be recognized as such.

     Quick side note, the Houston Comets are the greatest team the WNBA has ever seen. Four WNBA Championships in a row. Three future Hall of Famers and all time top ten players to play the game plus Janeth Arcain, Perrot…they were fantastic. What a joy it was to watch basketball at such a high level. The Miami Heat are to be commended for their back to back championships but what the Comets did together with three superstars is more so what I think we all expected from the Heat. The Heat are more so Lebron is the superstar and Bosh and D-Wade do their thing too sometimes. On the court the Comets exemplified how superstars come together, regardless of what the behind the scenes issues were, and work as a machine to give us a level never seen before. There really was no one player. You had to stop them all. They were magic. Please tune in tonight to watch ‘Swoopes’ on ESPN as they document the greatest player who played for the greatest team that the WNBA has ever seen. 

The greatest WNBA player ever