Pro Basketball Gives Girls Something to Look Up To

WASHINGTON —  What a difference a role model makes.

“I had girls come up to me and say, ‘I want to be you,’ ” said Washington Mystics forward Murriel Page.

That’s something the WNBA player could not have done when she was a girl. And the presence of the young fans says much about the growth of girls’ basketball. In driveways, recreational leagues and high schools around the nation, participation is rocketing.

Some experts believe the sport’s room at the top is a big factor in the growth. Girls now can dream, as boys always have, of going through college on a basketball scholarship, and then drawing a team paycheck in the Women’s National Basketball Assn.

“When you thought of a basketball player, you didn’t think of a female,” said Page, who grew up playing boys in her hometown of Bay Springs, Miss. “A lot of us had to put up with people calling us tomboys.”

But there’s a new ideal of what a woman can be. “With there being [a professional league], there is someone a little girl can look up to, who has gone through what they are going through,” Page said.

Increased access based on Title IX federal equal opportunity provisions is a big part of the growth in girls’ and women’s basketball, said Dan Kellams, an analyst with the American Basketball Council, an association of companies that make and distribute basketball gear.

In 10 years ending in 1997, the number of females playing basketball increased 25% to 13.7 million, according to a polling firm, American Sports Data of Hartsdale, N.Y. More females play basketball than any other team sport, the survey found; volleyball was second at 12.2 million players in 1997.

The greatest growth in total female play was in the 6-to-11 age group, which rose from 2.7 million in 1987 to 4 million in 1997. The sport has gotten better at marketing to young people, with smaller balls and backboards that can be adjusted down to within reach of younger players, Kellams said.

And girls are getting encouragement at home to try basketball, Kellams said. “A lot of this is coming from the father, who is seeing his daughter in a whole new way as an athlete, and is just as nuts about a girl athlete as he would be with a boy athlete,” he said. Fathers are going into schools to demand equal access for their daughters, he said.

The growth in driveway and rec league ball is adding depth to high school ball, said Leta Andrews, girls’ basketball coach for junior high and high school in Granbury, Texas. “Recreational basketball has caused enthusiasm,” she said. “The players have a burning desire to improve their skills, and they want to contribute to the success of the team.”

The current high school players are making college coaches happier.

“There are more good games and good players than ever before,” said Leon Barmore, head women’s coach at Louisiana Tech, Ruston.

It’s also a good time to be a girl. “If you are a young girl player from 10 to 18 years old, it is wide open for you to develop and some day play college--and some day play pro--basketball,” he said.

Which leaves Andrews, at 61 and with 37 years of coaching experience, somewhat envious, even though she is fourth on the National Federation of State High School Assn.’s all-time high school victory list for girls’ basketball coaches.

“I’d love to roll the calendar back,” Andrews said. “I would have a burning desire to be one of those team members. I would work very hard.”