Cheryl Miller Satisfied Directing From Bench

Cheryl Miller wants to get one thing straight.

“No, I am not at all interested in playing in the WNBA,” she said recently from her Phoenix workout site. “I think it’s great for the opportunity to play. But I have no interest in playing. Coach and general manager is enough for me.”

Miller has those two jobs with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and leads her club into their first game Sunday against Charlotte.

Miller, the two-time college Player of the Year, an Olympian, a basketball broadcaster and the former coach at USC, is excited about this newest opportunity.

“I have always wanted to coach a pro team,” Miller said. “And with the NBA’s support, I felt this league could succeed.”

Now with a team that includes 38-year-old Nancy Lieberman-Cline, Miller has the challenge of molding a professional club.

She walked away from USC in 1995 to take a job with TNT doing work on the cable network’s NBA broadcasts, but doesn’t see the Trojans job as helping her much here.

“It’s a totally different situation,” Miller said. “I can’t take much from USC to this job. I’m working with totally different people and have to develop chemistry.”