The Seattle Storm dropped basketball legend and gay mom Sheryl Swoopes from their roster this week, citing the league’s salary cap. (After Ellen reports that the NBA’s cap is $58 million per team, whereas WNBA teams have to make do with $803,000 per year.)
The three-time WNBA MVP and three-time Olympic gold medalist said she’s “disappointed,” and that her previous back injuries have now healed. If she still wants to play, I hope another team will pick her up. (I’m rooting for the Connecticut Sun, since they play closest to where I live.)
She’s keeping busy in the off season, though, coaching middle-school girls’ basketball with her partner Alisa Scott. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a great story of how she found the position through Craigslist:
“My name’s Sheryl,” she said in a voice mail to [athletic director John Wiley]. “Can you call me back?”
Not knowing who she was, Wiley called her and told her he was looking for people with playing and coaching experience.
“Well, I’ve played the game a little,” Swoopes told him, “and I’ve done some coaching of my son’s AAU team.
False humility or genuine modesty? I’m betting on the latter:
Swoopes was nervous the first day, allowing former coach Steve Meredith to run practice. “I chickened out, I did,” she said.
She didn’t want the players to call her “Coach” because that made her feel old, so she asked them to call her Sheryl.
Somehow, this makes me want to go work out tonight.
[Update: More breaking WNBA mom news, though without the lesbian twist: Three-time WNBA MVP and four-time Olympic gold medalist Lisa Leslie has announced she will retire after this coming season, in part because “I’m really passionate about raising a child and being there for her.” Her former LA Sparks teammate Candace Parker, last year’s league MVP and rookie of the year, will be taking the coming season off because she is expecting her first child in May.]