At Last, Dora Dome Truly Feels at Home : A Gifted Athlete, She No Longer Takes UCLA, or Her Basketball, for Granted

Dora Dome is a true success story, a person who wanted so badly to be a part of the UCLA women’s basketball team that she went to just about every home game since the ninth grade, hung around Coach Billie Moore’s office as a high school senior and had the principal and coach at Fairfax call and put in a few good words in hopes of a scholarship.

Although Dome had been panned in initial reports by assistant coaches, Moore finally noticed and signed her. And Dome has merely gone on to become the Bruins’ leading scorer in this, her junior season.

Even so, hers was almost a distress story.

In Moore’s annual postseason evaluations, players are usually told what to improve upon during the summer, things like strength or dribbling or outside shooting. Last April, Moore’s advice to Dome was more along the lines of a complete overhaul.

“I have a list of schools that I could recommend you transfer to,” Moore said.

Dome wasn’t shocked. She had averaged 11.6 points as a sophomore but had often heard from her coach that she had to be more consistent, that she was taking it too easy on the court. Basically, that she wasn’t playing hard enough all the time.

“She has so much ability that sometimes she can coast and play effectively,” Moore said this week.

And that’s just what Moore didn’t want, for Dome to coast. She tried to push her star-to-be--and almost pushed her out the door. Dome, looked upon as the next great women’s athlete at a school that has had several, had grown defensive toward any statements that included the word potential and, moreover, had considered transferring long before Moore brought it up.

“I didn’t like Billie’s expectations,” Dome said. “She felt I had become more of a negative aspect to the team. She said some of the things, since I was looked up to by some of the younger players, would drag the team down.

“Billie always said in practice that I had to fill Jackie Joyner’s shoes. Jackie (who had graduated the year before) is a world-class athlete. She’s a considerably better athlete than I am. I wouldn’t say that I’m a bad athlete, but it would be foolish to think that I could be on the same level as her. I withdrew. I had a fear of failing. That’s a lot of pressure to put on a 19-year-old.

“I sort of crawled into my own little corner. I didn’t communicate well with the coaches or the players. So when I got in the game, I wasn’t consistent because of it, and that’s why it looked like I played like an individual.”

After the meeting with Moore, though, Dome had time to think about the season that had just finished and her career, past and present. She thought about better communication and about maturity and about her first love--playing for UCLA.

She stayed.

Joyner, now Joyner-Kersee and named Monday night as winner of the Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the country, competed in track and basketball at UCLA.

Denise Curry combined softball with basketball, and Ann Meyers did the same.

Jeanne Beauprey and Denise Corlett played both basketball and volleyball.

Dome, who has played both guard and both forward positions this season, has the same multisport ability.

“It wouldn’t surprise me that by the time she’s a fifth-year senior, when her basketball eligibility has run out, to see her on the volleyball team,” Moore said. “And you could very easily see her playing softball.”

The 5-foot 10-inch Dome is such a good athlete that Tennessee offered her a volleyball scholarship, and Moore was determined to get her after seeing just one Fairfax game--a state playoff game against Ventura Buena in which Dome scored just eight points.

“I saw that athletic ability, and that was enough for me,” Moore said.

Dome, who has played in the Olympic Festival the last two off-seasons and who in April plans to try out for the World University Games, has been a do-it-all this season for UCLA, which has a 17-8 overall record, 10-5 in the Pacific 10 Conference. She has:

--Played point guard as a replacement for Kristi Moore, the only Bruin to start all 25 games.

--Averaged 17 points a game heading into tonight’s Pacific 10 game at 7:30 with USC, 18-7 and 12-3, at the Sports Arena, tops on the team.

--Averaged 6.6 rebounds to also lead in that category.

--Scored 42 points Feb. 5 to set a Pauley Pavilion single-game record for a Bruin.

--Led UCLA in scoring in 13 of its 25 games.

--Fouled out seven times, and apparently will lead the team in that category for the third straight time.

“Some people made it difficult on her when they said she would be the next Jackie Joyner,” said Shari Biggs, the only four-year player on the team. “Those are very big shoes to fill. But (Dome) has become her own person. Soon, someone is going to have to fill her shoes.”

Notes USC won the first meeting of the season between the teams Jan. 23 at Pauley Pavilion, 76-72. In that game, the Trojans made 20 of 27 free throws and the Bruins just 2 of 4. . . . Cherie Nelson continues to lead USC in scoring with a 20.6-point average. Monica Lamb at 16.4, Karon Howell at 14.4 and Rhonda Windham at 11.3 are also in double figures. “From (top-ranked) Texas on down, with Windham and Lamb and Nelson, they are as good a starting five as any team in the country,” UCLA Coach Billie Moore said of the Trojans.