ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 16, 1997 TAG: 9702180046
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-10 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE PHILADELPHIA native has a professional contract in the United States, something once left to the boys.
Dawn Staley has her Olympic gold medal. Now, she's discovering basketball life on a budget.
After a year of five-star hotels and high-class travel with the U.S. women's national team, Staley is among the pioneer players in the American Basketball League, where things are sometimes decidedly down-market.
``There are places where the hotels are nice, like Seattle and Portland,'' the point guard for the Richmond Rage said. ``Other cities - we're not staying in motels, but you have to go outside to get to your room, and I don't think that's too safe.''
It's basketball, though, played in America and paying her three times what she made as a hoops vagabond in Europe, and so Staley will gladly endure plastic drinking glasses and cable without HBO.
``I'm not complaining,'' she said Friday. ``I'd stay in Motel 7 to be playing in the United States.''
A high school star in Philadelphia's Public League and two-time college player of the year at Virginia, Staley is back in her hometown this weekend, representing the Olympic gold-medal squad as the U.S. Olympic Committee's team of the year.
``I'm happy to be here in Philadelphia, a city I adore,'' she said. Her Olympic teammates, she said, ``made my dream come true and I hope I helped make their dreams come true.''
This is a basketball town. Since Wilt Chamberlain, Philadelphia has produced a steady stream of top-quality talent, often playing with unusual flair.
Staley learned the game on the playgrounds and in the rec centers, going against boys who had their eyes on college and, afterward, something that wasn't available to her at the time - a big pro contract.
``Guys in the neighborhood were my role models,'' she said.
Against such competition, Staley developed into a passer unlike any the women's game has seen.
``I perfected that because sometimes I couldn't get a shot,'' she said. ``And they liked it when you passed them the ball. That made it easy to get picked first.''
The appeal of women's basketball, shown nationally in the Olympics and now spreading through the ABL, is the strength of fundamentals and the lack of in-your-face antics that have started to plague the NBA. Staley said she'd still want that playground experience but take care not to pick up bad habits.
``I'd recommend playing against the guys, but don't lose yourself to them,'' she said. ``You can fall into the trap. You have to know when to throw those fancy passes and who to throw them to. Our game isn't dunks and 360s. There's a time and place for that.''
Back home, Staley is getting a needed rest for a body that hasn't had a lengthy break from basketball in a long time. She's also taking something back to the streets through the Dawn Staley Foundation, dedicated to helping inner-city youth.
So far, the foundation has presented a check to the Public League, and Staley said she wants to install fiberglass backboards and otherwise spruce up the rec center where she played as a kid. It's named after Hank Gathers, the Philadelphia schoolboy star who collapsed and died of a heart ailment during a college game at Loyola Marymount.
There's also an essay contest planned for students in Philadelphia's public schools, with winners receiving cash prizes, and a charity golf tournament scheduled for Richmond in June.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Dawn Staley (right), a two-time player of the yearby CNBat Virginia, celebrates winning the Olympic gold medal with teammate
Teresa Edwards last summer.