Keith Strudler: The Best/Worst Of Times

Perhaps it’s true that for women’s basketball as an aggregate, these are the best of times and the worst of times. Certainly, the University of Connecticut, whose women’s team has now won 101 consecutive games, is living in halcyon days. 

They play in packed arenas and they get discussed above the fold, if that phrase still means anything. National sports shows debate whether they’re the greatest team ever – not just in women’s basketball, but in any sport, male or female. So for UConn women’s basketball, times are good.

For the rest of the sport, it’s less clear. On the college side, most everyone outside of Connecticut and the team UConn is playing that night feels like they live in an ongoing solar eclipse. Overall national attendance hums along at a relatively meager pace, and NCAA Tournament crowds are lower than a decade ago. On the professional side, known in the US as the WNBA, fans are still waiting for the breakthrough they assumed inevitable. Instead, it’s middle class salaries for athletes and games billed as family entertainment, not world class athleticism or a way to impress corporate clients like the NBA. Attendance numbers are still nowhere near 1998 record numbers, and the league has settled in as an established, but still niche part of the sports business ecosphere. It’s kind of a midlife crisis. You’re still there, but reality sets in that you’re not where you thought you might be.

And then there’s this. On Tuesday, now former WNBA veteran Candice Wiggins announced her retirement from the league, where she’s played since 2008 after a star career at Stanford. But it’s not that she retired, although 29 is relatively young, considering she could have resigned with the New York Liberty. It’s how she retired, or more specifically, what she said on the way out the door.

Specifically, Wiggins told the San Diego Tribune that she wanted play two more years, but the state of the league is depressing, athletes aren’t valued, the environment is toxic, and basically sticking around would damage her mental state. That was the good part. Just to throw gasoline on the flame, she critiqued her fellow players for treating her poorly because she is openly and vocally heterosexual. She also claimed that 98% of the league is gay, and that overwhelming majority led to some fairly abusive behaviors, including calling her the B-word and roughing her up during games.

That, more than her outrage of being devalued as an athlete, is what’s getting headlines, for a lot of reasons. For the record, Wiggins did recant a bit on her claim, saying that the 98% figure was simply an illustration, not a fact. Or perhaps an alternative fact. Regardless, it’s gotten a lot of athletes – present and past – pretty riled up. Some have called it ridiculous. Others have critiqued Wiggins for reinforcing unfair stereotypes. And others have said her comments create a divide amongst a group of athletes that should be united in moving the women’s game forward.

For the official record, the league has decided not to comment, while the current head of the WNBA Players Association said the comments should be taken seriously. So not much to see there.

And here’s the obvious rub. On the one hand, the WNBA is groundbreaking not only because it’s a professional basketball league for women, but also a league that brought together athletes with diverse orientations. Make no mistake, the WNBA is not the NBA, where even a singular openly gay athletes is a story. In the WNBA, gay athletes are open and accepted. Now it’s not 98%, but a considerable number. This is a reality of women’s basketball, softball, and many other sports, where gender norms are challenged and women no longer have to hide behind a shield of heterosexuality to be allowed to play a rough game. In other words, part of what makes the WNBA special is because it challenges the very power structures that have kept women out of sports for decades.

Now, it’s also true that a good percentage of the American public doesn’t appreciate that. A good percentage won’t watch women’s sports unless they can remain confident that they still assume traditional female roles and ideals – adoring wife, mother, and all the trappings. It’s what made Anna Kournikova a multi-millionaire. This is the fight of the WNBA – to not only let women play sports, but to own them as well.

So when a WNBA athlete like Candice Wiggins criticizes her teammates and her sport for wanting all of that, it’s not simply an inconvenience. It’s nearly treason. And I’m not saying that all female athletes need be social warriors, nor is it the responsibility of women to make sure the rest of us aren’t jerks and bigots. I’m simply saying that in the path towards equity for women in sport, this is the wrong way forward.

It’s not the worst of times for women’s basketball. But unless you’re UConn, it’s not best either.

The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.