Mann Won’t Play for SDSU Women This Season

Terri Mann, 1987 national girls’ basketball player of the year while at Point Loma High School, will not play for the San Diego State women’s team this season, first-year Coach Beth Burns said Sunday.

Burns said she met Aug. 28 with Mann, who would have been eligible to play for SDSU on Dec. 17, and dismissed her from the team. Burns said that Mann will retain her scholarship.

“She needs to get her life in order,” Burns said. “She has to get her physical situation and her scholastic situation in order before she can contribute to the team. She has to go to school and prove to herself and to me that she wants to be here.”

Mann still has not completely rehabilitated from a knee injury suffered after just 12 games at Western Kentucky last season. She underwent her second reconstructive knee surgery April 6 after transferring to SDSU last December.

Burns said it is possible Mann will play for the Aztecs next season.

“If Terri goes through the year and maintains her academics, she knows she can approach me and say she’s ready to try out,” Burns said. “And it would be a tryout situation--she’d have to prove she could play.”

Mann, who led Point Loma to four consecutive state championships, was named California girls’ player of the year in both 1986 and 1987 by Cal-Hi Sports magazine.

Burns spent the last half-hour of Sunday’s two-hour practice--her first--looking over walk-on prospects. Burns said that because she only has eight players on the roster, she will hold practices open to interested SDSU students all week.