Storm
Dunn back where she started

By Percy Allen
Seattle Times staff reporter

STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Former Storm coach Lin Dunn, now an assistant for the Indiana Fever, gets a warm welcome back to Seattle from Storm forward Lauren Jackson after Indiana's practice yesterday. The teams play at noon today at KeyArena.

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Before Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson, there was Lin Dunn.

If not for her country charm and homespun basketball tales, the Storm might have died on the conceptual drawing board.

There would likely not be any sort of anticipation of playing for a WNBA championship or a reigning league MVP who resides in Seattle if Dunn had not led the charge to start an expansion franchise here five years ago.

As its coach, she was the heart and soul and, more important, the face of a team that didn't have an arena, players or a nickname.

Storm fans built a binding relationship with Dunn, who returns to KeyArena this afternoon as an assistant coach with the Indiana Fever.

It was Dunn who dreamed a dream that has become reality.

She endured the inaugural 6-26 season and the dismal 10-22 campaign that followed because she believed that one day the Storm would be in the favorable position that it is in today.

"Seeing Lin brings back a lot of memories, some good and some not so good," said Simone Edwards, who along with Kamila Vodichkova are the only remaining players from the original Storm team. "Losing 20 games is not fun ... But somebody had to do it."

Dunn did the dirty work.

She was not just a coach, but also a walking vaudeville act, a tireless politician who spoke at countless charity events and a cheerleader who once dribbled a basketball through downtown Seattle for 5½ miles to drum up support for her team.
 
And when it seemed as if Dunn had the program going in the right direction, she quit after guiding the Storm to a 17-15 record and its first playoff appearance in 2002.

During her year away from basketball, Dunn underwent knee surgery and returned home to Dresden, Tenn., where she sought professional medical care for her 84-year-old mother.

After yesterday morning's Fever practice, the 57-year-old coach chatted comfortably with Jackson and Bird, while clutching a copy of the Australian photo magazine in which Jackson posed nude.

"When I look back the only thing I think about is the tremendous amount of pride that I have in what I was a part of building," Dunn said. "It's like giving birth to a child. It really is. When we started this team in the fall of '99, we had no team, no logo, no nothing. No players.

"We literally gave birth to this team, nurtured it and watched it grow. ... And I love the fact that they continued to get better."

Dunn believes she had to leave if the winning were to continue.

"When you look around the league at both NBA and WNBA, expansion coaches don't stay around," she said. "They lay the foundation and then they move on."

Before Storm coach Anne Donovan, there was Dunn who promised better times after so many disappointing defeats.

"When I took the job, I was reminded time and again of how are you going to replace Lin Dunn?" Donovan said. "I heard that from a ton of people. And why did we get rid of Lin Dunn?

"Lin is such a people person. She's one of the most outrageous and funny people that I know and people were very much endeared to her ... You don't replace people like Lin, and I never tried to."

Percy Allen: 206-464-2278 or pallen@seattletimes.com