Les Carpenter / Times staff columnist
WNBA makes a patriotic choice

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What's a flag worth these days, anyway? In a time when nationalism has become a contrived concept, defined by how red, white and blue a cable news ticker can roll or how straight you stand for "God Bless America" in the seventh-inning stretch, here comes a true act of patriotic sacrifice.

The WNBA shut itself down for a month last night.

It didn't do this because of money, though Lord knows women's professional basketball always seems of the verge of financial ruin. Nor did it lock the gates due to a lack of interest, because last night the Storm marched into its vacation before a nearly sold-out house and a regional telecast.

Instead, the fledgling league, still trying to find itself, closed up because it decided an Olympic gold medal and a laurel wreath was worth more than the good of its own teams. Somewhere it grasped the fading ideal that there is a magic in running fingers over the USA on a jersey; that you just can't put a price tag on the chill of watching your country's flag rise into the rafters.

Imagine Major League Baseball giving up a day of its almighty gate to send a team of its stars to the Olympics.

Imagine those stars agreeing to go.

There is risk in what the WNBA is doing. The league has been balancing above quicksand for much of its existence. Its best hope for survival has been the fact that it plays its games in the dead months of sports, when the only challenge is baseball, and there's something appealing to sitting inside on those days when heat vapors squiggle off the asphalt.

In the spring of 2003 the WNBA almost folded. Finally, with endorsements from major corporations like Sears and Procter & Gamble, a few of the teams are starting to break even.

And now the league goes and closes down for a month, pushing the August games into September, when it runs the danger of getting lost in a tangle of college football and NFL games and baseball playoff races. In a year when the WNBA was just starting to get to its feet, it is crawling again.

And why?
 
Because when Storm coach Anne Donovan, a two-time Olympian and an assistant coach on this summer's American team, tried the other day to describe the feeling of playing in the Olympics she had to stop in midsentence.

"I just get tight in my chest thinking about it," she said.

Most of us have become desensitized when it comes to the Olympics. The blast of news that hits us in the face most mornings is about steroid scandals and payoffs to Olympic organizers. The Dream Team of U.S. men's basketball players has absorbed so many defections it's barely worth watching anymore. The track stars who are going are under such suspicion we almost secretly hope they don't win and spare everyone the shame of having their medals ripped away.

But for the women who get paid to play basketball in this country, the Olympics still mean everything. Sue Bird remembers how the 1996 women's Dream Team spawned the interest that led to the WNBA. Her Storm teammate Lauren Jackson dedicated her life to playing for her native Australia in the 2000 Olympics because her mother, Maree, once a basketball star herself, had to miss the 1980 Olympics when she was pregnant with her.

"I had to re-evaluate my personal goals after (Sydney) because it had been all Sydney Olympics since I was 12," Jackson said.

Nobody would have blamed the WNBA if it said it couldn't spare its best players this summer. The U.S. could have sent a team of collegians to the Olympics, and the league could have forged on through the month. Don't believe the NBA would have done what hockey did and shut itself down like this. Nationalism is often a more meaningful pursuit in other lands, and hockey is still very much Canada's game.

More than at any time in decades, America needs Olympic heroes this summer. The commercialism of the games has made everybody leery of falling in love with our athletes.

Maybe you don't care about the WNBA, maybe you don't watch the games. There are still lots who don't. But how will anyone not burst with pride later this month when Bird is on a break firing a pass to Dawn Staley and the American women are on their way to a layup?

Next time you hear about BALCO or how Allen Iverson has missed another meeting, remember the women who want to be in Athens, who want to win, who would be horrified if they besmirched their country with scandal.

"Lisa Leslie was asked what's more important: WNBA championship or gold medal?" Donovan said. "She said, 'Gold medal.' "

Donovan smiled as she said this.

At least somewhere there's still a sports league that understands what patriotism is really all about.

Les Carpenter: 206-464-2280 or lcarpenter@seattletimes.com