Weight Was Behind Her Downfall

The Sparks apparently have given up on Daedra Charles, the 6-foot-3 power forward who showed up at training camp last summer at least 50 pounds overweight and never cracked the starting lineup.

They will ask the WNBA to void her contract, said Johnny Buss, the team president, then try to find a power forward in the draft to take some heat off Lisa Leslie.

Charles, 29, called “the greatest inside player I’ve ever coached” by Tennessee’s Pat Summitt, steadily lost weight last season but not nearly enough.

She was to have checked in with General Manager Rhonda Windham during the off-season with updates on her weight-loss program, but the calls stopped coming about a month ago.

Now, Charles isn’t even returning phone calls from the team, Buss said.

NO MEDIA SAVVY

If there is one audience driving both women’s pro leagues, it’s teenage girls. Look around at any WNBA or ABL game and you’ll see teens making up a quarter to a third of any crowd.

So why hasn’t the WNBA figured this out?

Not long ago, Erica Harbatkin, 15, who writes a women’s pro basketball newsletter on the Internet, called the WNBA publicity office and asked for a media guide.

The answer? No.

“They told me it was just for the big media,” said Harbatkin, a sophomore at Calabasas High. So, she turned to the ABL and found a rich source of features and commentary. The ABL not only sent her a media guide but the Long Beach StingRays issued her a media credential.

Paying her own way into Sparks games last summer, she would arrive hours early, hoping for quick Forum tunnel interviews with players.

She’s finding it more difficult to get to StingRay games--”It’s harder to get a ride to Long Beach,” she says--but never misses Sunday ABL telecasts.

ABL STATWATCH

Philadelphia’s Beth Morgan, a rookie from Notre Dame, leads the league in three-point shooting at 44%. Shalonda Enis of Seattle and Columbus’ Katie Smith lead in free throws--based on 100 taken--at 87%. Philadelphia’s Dawn Staley and Atlanta’s Teresa Edwards are tied for the assists lead at 7.1 a game. Long Beach’s Yolanda Griffith still leads Portland’s Natalie Williams in rebounding, 12.2 to 10.5. Griffith, the league scoring leader most of the season, is fourth, at 19.5 points, behind Edwards at 23.7, Williams at 21, and New England’s Carolyn Jones at 20.8.

HEY, PIPE DOWN!

Someone came up with the good idea of wiring ABL coaches for sound during Sunday telecasts. But so far, no one has told the announcers to shut up when the coaches start talking.

LAYUPS

The WNBA has signed two more Olympians, 6-5 Brazilian Alessandra Santos de Oliveira and 6-8 Razija Mujanovic of Bosnia. . . . The Sparks have been told the expansion draft to stock teams in Washington and Detroit will be one round, and each team will lose only one player.

On the college scene, USC will be the site of the 1999 women’s NCAA West Regional at the Sports Arena. . . . Connecticut’s Shea Ralph, a freshman standout a year ago, is recuperating after a second operation on her right knee in five months. She blew out the knee during the NCAA tournament last spring, then did it again in late August.