Mystics Ride Wave of Fans

What’s going on in Washington?

That has been asked for 222 years, but never until now has the question been framed in the context of women’s basketball.

The WNBA took a long look at Washington’s 22-year-old subway system, Metro, noted there was a Metro stop 50 feet from the 21,000-seat MCI Center, and put an expansion team there.

They called the team the Mystics. Some now call the team the Miserable Mystics, for this could be one of the worst teams in the history of pro sports. It has had eight- and 11-game losing streaks, and is 3-22.

But the WNBA’s cellar-dwellers are first-place turnstile-spinners. The Mystics average 16,027 a game. The WNBA average is 10,142. The smallest Washington crowd this summer was 10,364.

There have been two crowds topping 20,000 and four of more than 18,000.

When the Mystics played Charlotte in a noon game on Tuesday, July 21, they drew 20,674.

It’s Metro-driven, everyone agrees.

“We think about 50% of our crowds are people who ride Metro trains to the games,” said Mystic executive Judy Holland.

WNBA fans can park at Metro stations as far away as Bethesda, Md., and Vienna, Va., and ride one-way to the MCI center for $3.25. A Washington resident can reach the arena for $1.10.

“There are four Metro stops within seven blocks of the arena, Chinatown is two blocks away . . . so a family can make a whole day of it,” Holland said.

What would Mystic ticket demand be like if they were the Mighty Mystics, if they were 22-3 instead of 3-22?

PLAYER-COACH

She doesn’t get a bump-up of her $50,000 salary, but it is a title.

One of new Spark Coach Orlando Woolridge’s first moves was to designate backup point guard Jamila Wideman his “player-coach.”

“I want someone who can give me player input, what the players would like to do that we’re not doing, what they think of what we’re trying to do,” he said. “And Jam’s the one.”

Wideman has a post-basketball legal career in mind. Her mother, Judy, is a lawyer and Wideman plans to enter law school in the 1999 off-season.

“She has head coach written all over her,” Woolridge said.

“She’s so damn smart, I can’t believe it. I really think she ought to think about coaching.”

A’ONE AND A’TWO

There are two reasons the Houston Comets have gone from a very good championship team to a dominating team this summer:

* A strenuous off-season conditioning program that Sheryl Swoopes used to regain her pre-motherhood form.

* Monica Lamb, the 6-foot-5 former Trojan who was the WNBA’s last draft pick last April.

Lamb, who played one season, 1986-87, at USC before embarking on a nine-year pro career in Europe, is shooting 56.5%, and only Tina Thompson and Swoopes have more rebounds.

She began the season with dim prospects. She was Houston’s No. 3 center--until No. 1 draft pick Polina Tzekova of Bulgaria decided to sit out the season because of her mother’s illness.

Then, 14 minutes into the season opener, starter Wanda Guyton took herself out, complaining of lower back pain. She hasn’t played since.

Suddenly, Lamb was No. 1.

She has started 21 games and has made both Coach Van Chancellor and 1997 league most valuable player Cynthia Cooper look smart.

Cooper, who played with and against Lamb in Europe, had urged Chancellor to draft her.

FREE THROWS

Pam Batalis, general manager of the ABL’s New England Blizzard, has been promoted to league vice president for sales and will be in charge of ABL national corporate sponsorship solicitation, league CEO Gary Cavalli said. Christopher Sienko replaces her as interim general manager. . . . Add Blizzard: Carolyn Jones, the ABL scoring leader last season, recently married Charlton J. Young and announced she will be known as Carolyn Young. Teammates, however, say they’ll still call her by her old nickname, C.J. . . . The 36,937 fans the Sparks played before in New York and Washington over the weekend is a two-game league attendance record for a road team, the WNBA confirmed. . . . Jim Weyermann, ABL team operations chief, has been promoted to ABL chief operating officer.