At the Forum, Basketball Is Only Part of It

Sparks were flying at the Forum on Saturday--in the eyes of little girls, in the beliefs of little boys, through the heart of a movement that danced on its new national stage.

On a sunny summer afternoon, 14,284 fans came inside to watch a professional basketball game featuring fastbreaks, floor burns and fearlessness.

A game played entirely by women.

When layers of multicolored confetti settled on the court after the New York Liberty’s 67-57 victory over the Los Angeles Sparks in the inaugural game of the new Women’s National Basketball Assn., one thing was clear.

This is about many things, and basketball is only one of them.

This is about Jaime McMillen, a 15-year-old in baggy gym shorts and T-shirt, shooting baskets in the Forum parking lot.

The Torrance girl has long dreamed of a career in basketball. Finally those dreams have a shape, a name.

“This is my opportunity,” she said. “This is my future.”

This is about the first two people to approach Sparks guard Jamila Wideman for her autograph before the game.

Two little boys.

“That brought a smile to my face,” Wideman said.

As it would to anyone who has ever wondered where sexism begins, and how it can end.

“This game is probably more important for boys to see,” said Chris Gobrecht, the new USC women’s coach, who brought her young daughter and son to the game. “This is a good start to changing their perception of women, to see them in athletic, powerful roles.”

This is also about the best--and probably last--chance for a women’s professional sports league to succeed in this country.

For the first time, a women’s sports league is being supported by a major men’s sport organization--the National Basketball Assn.

For the first time, a women’s league has major sponsors and a TV contract that will include about three national telecasts each week during its 28-game summer season.

“It’s hard to imagine that any more can be done than what we are doing,” said Val Ackerman, league president.

This is not the only women’s league trying to capitalize on the momentum of the 1996 Olympic gold medal in women’s basketball.

The rival American Basketball League began last year, plays in smaller towns and in the fall. But even with better players, it is not expected to survive in the wake of this summer’s national WNBA push.

“I think the WNBA will buy that other league,” said Magic Johnson, a former Laker star who was among several celebrities at courtside Saturday. “I think this league is going to be around a long time.”

As long as the women don’t collapse from exhaustion.

Despite countless mistakes and poor shooting--problems the players promise will improve when they play together longer--Saturday’s game was still two hours’ worth of sprinting, diving, shoving and the sort of sideline cheering normally only found in the NBA playoffs.

All for salaries that range from $15,000 to $50,000, which is what many of this town’s other basketball players make per game.

Yes, the Sparks’ 6-foot-5 star Lisa Leslie even tried a slam dunk.

Late in the first half, she was alone on a fastbreak. She grabbed a pass and stuck the smaller-than-regulation brown-and-white ball in her palm and leaped toward the hoop and the crowd roared and . . .

She missed. She didn’t jump high enough. The ball clanked against the rim and fell off.

And it didn’t matter.

If you attend one of these games to see dunks, you are wasting your time.

You come here to see--on a good day, anyway--crisp passing and old-fashioned offensive plays and traditional zone defense.

“This can’t be another version of the man’s game, it has to be the woman’s game, that is what has become so popular on the college level,” said Gobrecht, referring to the sold-out women’s national championship Final Four each year.

The Sparks’ Tamecka Dixon put it another way.

“If you can dunk, more power to you,” she said. “But the girls’ game is to lay it up.”

Later, Leslie said: “I tried to dunk, but my legs weren’t ready. I figured, if I could get up and do it. . . . I said, what the heck.

“If you miss, at least you tried.”

That same attitude has been adopted throughout the league, which opened just two days before the 25th anniversary of then-President Richard Nixon’s signing of Title IX, a law that has led to increased equality in women’s sports.

Some ideas have worked, others have clanked off the rim.

In advertisements that flooded the airways throughout the NBA playoffs, the women players proclaimed, “We Got Next,” street slang for a team waiting to enter a playground game.

It was grammatically incorrect, overused and finally put to rest by Liberty star Rebecca Lobo after Saturday’s game.

“I’m glad there was no more worrying about ‘We Got Next,’ ” she said. “We’re here now.”

When they took the floor, they were greeted by sights and sounds that surprised all veteran basketball observers.

The crowd was largely women, many with young children, and instead of cheering, it screeched.

“One thing I have never seen at the Forum before, I have never seen so many families,” Magic Johnson said.

That was one of only many differences on an afternoon when such things were embraced.

When is the last time that the final minutes of a sports event were punctuated by an announcement that certain players would be signing autographs on the floor?

When is the last time the Forum scoreboard showed commercials during timeouts that featured pleas for more women policeman?

How about that bellowing fan behind one basket who kept yelling, “That’s it, girl! Way to go, girl!”

At least when the fans chanted, “Dee-fense,” the players actually played defense.

“This is history,” said Matt Plaskoff, a Hidden Hills contractor who brought his twin 6-year-old daughters to the game. “I came because it was history.”

And, perhaps, because daughter Stephanie is going to be a star one day.

“She can shoot at a 10-foot goal, you know,” he said.

That other future star, Torrance’s McMillen, was asked beforehand what excited her most about watching the new league.

“I want to see women do a guy’s job,” she said.

Her father, Fred, laughed. He was glad he came.

“That’s the perception she has now,” he said, ushering her toward the Forum’s front door. “Today, that changes.”

* SPARKS LOSE OPENER

Before a big crowd, the home team failed to generate much offense against Liberty. C1, C11