Abl On Arena Menu Basketball Fans To Get A Taste Of New Women’s League
Tari Phillips has seen and tasted foreign culture in a basketball career that has taken her to Spain, France, Turkey and Italy.
The tasting part she’s had to cope with.
“I loved Sicily,” the 6-foot-3 forward/ center of the Seattle Reign said Monday. “It was a great experience for me. I have the weight to prove it. I came back looking prosperous.”
Phillips laughed.
If she scores as many points on the court as she does in a quick interview, she’ll be a star in the new women’s professional basketball league that visits the Arena tonight.
The Reign and Atlanta Glory play an American Basketball League exhibition here at 7:30.
Seattle’s two Olympic gold medalists are expected to dress and may see action. Cindy Brown had surgery Friday to repair a broken nose and was fitted for a face mask Monday. Venus Lacy, who, with Brown, missed an exhibition loss at Portland last week, is coming off a strained knee.
Phillips, who had 19 points in the first half of that 91-76 setback in Portland, is expected to start at power forward. Now 27, she played two seasons at Georgia before transferring to Central Florida, where 25 points and 12 rebounds a game convinced her to play for pay in Europe.
And, yes, she says she slams a basketball.
“But the dunk needs work,” Phillips warned. “You might see it if I’m wide open, the seas part and the skies open up.”
Otherwise it might be mid-season in the Mercer Arena at the Seattle Center before the opportunity presents itself. Like other veterans, Phillips is playing her way into basketball shape.
The regular-season opener is Friday in Denver.
“I think you’ll see some good basketball here,” Phillips said. “I think you’ll see a physical, athletic kind of game. They (Glory) are probably a lot like us right now, trying to find some combinations and some chemistry. I think both teams feel they can be a force in this league.”
Popular at the high school, college and international levels, women’s basketball never has caught on as a pro sport in the U.S.
“I’d like to do something at home that some of us have been doing overseas,” Phillips said. “That’s establish a league here in the states. We’ve all heard a lot of talk about it. Now we have a chance to do something about it. You never know how you’re going to fare with other sports - against men’s sports - unless you try.”
Basketball jobs overseas are limited, she added, “and playing over there is not for everyone.
“I had offers to go back, but I’m looking forward to (hearing) cheering in English,” she said. “Overseas, it was like, ‘Thank you, thank you very much. I don’t know what you just said, but thanks anyway.”’
Actually, Phillips said she tried to pick up local languages.
“Turkey was an interesting part of my life,” she said. “I’m glad that’s on my resume. To live in Turkey is to live in another world. I lived in these exotic places I used to read about. It was a revelation to me.
“But Turkish is a language I didn’t get very far with. I’d say I’m most fluent in Spanish and Italian, with a little bit of French. I didn’t bring back much Turkish, but how much would you use Turkish, anyway?”
She’s still a long way from home, having grown up in Orlando, Fla.
So, came the obligatory question, how do you like the Northwest so far?
“Too much sun,” she said.
After a pause she said, “That’s supposed to be a joke. I’m from Florida.”
What’s no joke is the vision of some of the players, Phillips among them.
“I’m coming off a little bit of a knee (problem), some tendinitis, but I’m just happy to be on the court,” she said. “As the season gets going I’ll get stronger. Then the talent will be turned loose. There are a couple of players like myself who have dunked, or can do it. If they get the opportunity I hope they take it. I know I will.
“I hope to be rockin’ the house by then.”
In English.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo
MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: AT THE ARENA ABL exhibition: Seattle Reign vs. Atlanta Glory, 7:30 tonight.