Above the din of the wild cheering and exaltation that followed Candace Parker’s rim-rattling breakaway dunk against Army on Sunday, you could almost hear the ESPN suits who decided five years ago to expand the network’s coverage to all 63 women’s NCAA tournament games giving high-fives to one another.
While I was talking about the men’s tourney with a friend the other day, he brought up the women’s tournament. “Does anybody even care?” he asked.
Maybe a lot of people didn’t care before Parker became the first woman to dunk in the NCAA tournament. But they will now.
Hate it or love it, Parker’s two dunks Sunday will have folks flipping over to ESPN for the Sweet Sixteen matchups this weekend who wouldn’t have known otherwise that the women have a tournament of their own going on right now. At the same time, these viewers might also hear about Courtney Paris, the daughter of former 49er Pro Bowler Bubba Paris and freshman center at Oklahoma who became the first player in NCAA history to record 700 points, 500 rebounds and 100 blocks in a season. Or top-seeded North Carolina guard Ivory Latta, the dynamic Tar Heel who scores in buckets despite her 5-foot-6 stature.
And so the snowball of interest begins. At least until the sporting public is distracted by something else. Like major league baseball opening day. Or Barry Bonds.
It’s great that Parker’s dunks will inspire more people to tune into the women’s tourney this week. I think it’s a good thing, even though the women’s game doesn’t need dunking to be watchable. However, women’s basketball is kind of like hockey: It’s better in person.
Dunking shouldn’t give the women any more credibility. Duke guard J.J. Redick, future Hall of Famer John Stockton, Illinois guard Dee Brown are some men’s players who don’t dunk. No one thinks of them as lesser players because of it.
Except for Redick’s teammates. They actually made fun of him the first and only time he dunked, which was against Maryland in January.
I asked Pepperdine guard Jessica Ross what she thought of “the dunks.” Amazingly, the former Notre Dame standout hadn’t seen the footage of Parker by the time I spoke to her Thursday. But her reaction to the accomplishment was all positive.
“That’s awesome. That’s going to make people watch the game,” said freshman Ross, whose 15th-seeded Pepperdine Waves fell to Paris and the second-seeded Sooners in the first round of the tournament Saturday.
Hey, it got my attention. And I already follow women’s college basketball.
When Parker became the first female high school player to dunk in a game her sophomore year at west suburban Chicago’s Naperville Central High, she was a novelty. But it was her overall game that made her a superstar.
The thing about Parker is that she’s not just about dunking. She’s widely been talked about as the player whose overall talent could revolutionize the women’s game. The same can’t be said about Georgeann Wells, Charlotte Smith and Michelle Snow – other women that have dunked in games. The WNBA’s Lisa Leslie could be considered an exception.
Here’s hoping Parker has made a lasting impression on people because of the rest of her game. As Tennessee coach Pat Summitt told ESPN.com, dunking is low on Parker’s list of skills.
“For everything the dunk is and was, it’s the least-skilled thing that Candace Parker can do,” the Lady Vols coach said.
It’s stupid to pretend that Parker’s dunks can hold a candle to any dunk thrown down by a male player. (Except maybe Redick’s). But that’s not what this is about. This is about the evolution of the women’s game – and women’s sports in general. Yeah, we’ll probably see more dunks from the women. But even better basketball.
Ana Patejdl covers sports for South Valley Newspapers. She can be reached at [email protected].
