This Rocker No Rookie to Motherhood

Hey, don’t pull your sister’s hair. . . .Hey, pick up those toys. . . .Hey, get away from the stove. . . .Hey, it’s time for your nap. . . .Hey, no TV until you finish dinner. . . Hey, don’t play with the telephone.

This is Pete’s world, where Suzie used to dwell.

But Suzie went bonkers and joined the Rockers.

So what’s a good daddy to do?

Everything.

Pete Serio cleans up tipped-over cereal bowls, changes diapers, bandages skinned knees. . .He does it all.

Pete, 38, is married to Suzie McConnell Serio, 32, All-American point guard at Penn State in 1988 and a member of two U.S. Olympic teams.

She’s also the champion mom of women’s pro basketball. There are 11 mothers in the WNBA, nine in the American Basketball League. But only the 5-foot, 5-inch McConnell Serio, who plays for the WNBA’s Cleveland Rockers, has given birth four times.

Here’s her home team’s starting lineup:

--son Peter, 7.

--daughter Jordan, 4.

--daughter Amanda, 2.

--daughter Madison, 1.

--husband Pete, 38.

They live in a three-bedroom house on a cul-de-sac in Upper St. Clair, Pa., not far from Pittsburgh.

Pete teaches at a junior high 20 minutes away and Suzie is the girls’ basketball coach at Oakland Catholic High School in Pittsburgh.

Much was made a year ago about Sheryl Swoopes joining the WNBA’s Houston Comets in August, after giving birth June 25, 1997.

When McConnell Serio launched her comeback, she hadn’t played a game in five years, since the 1992 Olympics.

“I’m so proud of her, what she’s done,” said Pete of his wife, who recently earned the WNBA’s “newcomer of the year” award after leading the Rockers to the Eastern Conference championship and the playoffs. Her team, down 0-1 in a three-game series, plays Phoenix tonight.

“When the WNBA started up, I knew she was thinking about it. We never really talked about it until we were watching a game last summer, and I told her, ‘You know, you’re still young enough, and you’re still good enough.’

“She just kept thinking about it. I could’ve speeded up the whole process by saying, ‘Suzie, let’s face it, you’re 32 and you’ve had four kids. You can’t do this.’ That’s the kind of competitor she is.

“And it wasn’t easy.

“She had some bad days. Right after she had Madison [on May 24, 1997], she started running. She’d come in some days really winded, and she was discouraged at how long it was taking to get the weight off. But she did it.”

Suzie went to the WNBA’s tryout camp in April and did well.

Then, a disappointment: She was drafted 16th, by Cleveland, in the second round. Had she been one of the first three picks, she would have been a $50,000-a-summer player, instead of $32,000.

“We’re glad it was Cleveland,” Pete said. “We were hoping for Cleveland or Washington, because anywhere else. . .it would’ve been hard to take the kids to see her play.”

Pete has loaded up the sport-utility wagon a half-dozen times and driven the 130 miles to Cleveland for Rocker homestands, moving the brood into Suzie’s two-bedroom apartment there.

The three youngest Serios are bewildered by it all, but not Peter.

“Peter is a WNBA junkie,” Pete said.

“He knows every player in the league, has all their trading cards and wears Rockers garb.”

The sports careers of Suzie and Pete, a golfer, intersected in the summer of 1998.

Asked what the worst part of his stay-at-home summer has been, he talked golf.

“I was doing great, had my handicap down to 9.4,” he said.

“I was playing twice a week. But since Suzie left for training camp, I’m lucky to play once every two weeks.”

The best part?

“When the Rockers introduce each starter to the crowd, each one runs to midcourt, bends over and hands a ball to a little kid from the audience,” Pete said.

“When Suzie came out for the third home game, there was Peter, waiting for his ball. Suzie picked him up in the air, hugged him, and gave him a big kiss, in front of 10,000 people.

“I loved that. . .and I’ll always remember it.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

WNBA Playoffs

A glance at the best-of-three semifinals of the WNBA playoffs, which continue tonight:

* Phoenix Mercury at Cleveland Rockers, 5 p.m. (ESPN). Phoenix leads series, 1-0.

* Charlotte Sting at Houston Comets, 7 p.m. (ESPN). Houston leads series, 1-0.